paddy

• IPA^(key): /ˈpædi/

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• Rhymes: -ædi

From Malay padi (“paddy plant”), from Proto-Malayic *padi, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *pajay, from Proto-Austronesian *pajay.

paddy (plural paddies)

1. Rough or unhusked rice, either before it is milled or as a crop to be harvested. [from 17th c.]
   • 2011, Deepika Phukan, translating Arupa Patangia Kalita, The Story of Felanee:

     Taking out a handful of paddy the old woman exclaimed, “Look how good this paddy is! It is called Malbhog – it makes excellent puffed rice.”

2. A paddy field, a rice paddy; an irrigated or flooded field where rice is grown. [from 20th c.]

• paddy paw

English dialect paddy (“worm-eaten”).

paddy (comparative more paddy, superlative most paddy)

1. (obsolete) Low; mean; boorish; vagabond.
   • Digges (1585)
   • John Lothrop Motley

     Even after the expiration of four months the condition of the paddy persons continued most destitute. The English soldiers became mere barefoot starving beggars in the streets […]

Possibly from Paddy (“Irishman”)

paddy (plural paddies)

1. A fit of temper; a tantrum

   throw a paddy etc.

   • 2013, Mike Brown, Adventures with Czech George (page 17)

     I like the story of the Emperor Frederick who got into a paddy with his cook, and shouted: 'I am the Emperor, and I want dumplings.'

2. (African American Vernacular, slang) A white person.
3. (colloquial, England) A labourer's assistant or workmate.
4. A drill used in boring wells, with cutters that expand on pressure.

• See Thesaurus:tantrum