Literary notes about raddled (AI summary)
The word "raddled" is deployed to evoke a sense of wear, decay, and even a hint of grotesque deterioration, whether describing physical features or the toll of life’s hardships. Writers use it to portray characters hardened and aged by sorrow or conflict, as seen in descriptions of skin blistered by tears [1] or cheeks so altered by time and abuse that they seem almost emblematic of long-past joys [2], [3]. In other contexts, "raddled" colors the narrative with imagery of disarray and exhaustion—bodies stamped with enduring marks of violence or neglect, such as bones beaten by a corporal [4], [5] or throats ornamented in a disordered manner [6]. Even when the term brushes against the surreal, lending its texture to inanimate objects tainted with rouge or symbolism [7], it consistently imparts a visual quality of damage and transformation, reflecting the complex interplay of beauty and decay in the human condition.
- Her laughing days were over now, tears blistered her raddled skin, and she wrung her hands continually and moaned for a priest.
— from A Marriage Under the Terror by Patricia Wentworth - As if I were a ghost, or a goblin, instead of only an old woman with raddled cheeks and a wig.
— from The Amateur Gentleman by Jeffery Farnol - I don't grow old any more than you do inside, in spite of my raddled, kippered face, and bones sticking out like hat-pegs.
— from Dodo Wonders-- by E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson - The corporal he raddled my bones terrible—but I set my teeth, and I told ’un nought.
— from Dramatic Technique by George Pierce Baker - Corporal raddled my bones terrible when I fought and bit, fearin’ they’d find your message hid in my smock.
— from Dramatic Technique by George Pierce Baker - They carried white thigh-bones like clubs, and shell ornaments jangled on their raddled throats and ankles.
— from West Of The Sun by Edgar Pangborn - A hand-basin, the water in it raddled with rouge, stood on the table behind her, and a white china jug of fresh water beside it.
— from The Black Opal by Katharine Susannah Prichard
