Mining. Also 6 buddel, 7 budle. [Etymology unknown: some have compared Ger. butteln to shake, agitate. The word occurs in Manlove 1653 as a term used by Derbyshire lead-miners; it is still current there and in Cornwall, and also in the U.S. silver mines.]
A shallow inclined vat in which ore is washed.
1531–2. Act 23 Hen. VIII., viii. § 1. The saide digger, owner, or wassher, shall make … sufficient hatches and ties in the ende of their buddels and cordes.
1653. Manlove, Rhymed Chron., 260. Main Rakes, Cross Rakes, Brown-henns, Budles and Soughs.
1674. Ray, Smelt. Silver, 116. The Buddle which is a vessel made like to a shallow tumbrel, standing a little shelving.
1869. Church, in Student, II. 402. The buddles where the ground ore is washed.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., Buddle (Cornwall), an inclined vat or stationary or revolving platform upon which ore is concentrated by means of running water. Strictly the buddle is a shallow vat…. But general usage, particularly on the Pacific slope, makes no distinction.
Comb., as buddle-boy, -head, -tub.
1860. Smiles, Self-Help, iii. 62. Earning three-halfpence a day as a buddleboy at a tin mine.
1671. Phil. Trans., VI. 2109. A Trambling shovel … to cast up the Ore … on a long square board … which is termed the Buddle-head.
1811. Chron., in Ann. Reg., 54/1. Miner’s buddle-tubs … and other materials.
