Other forms: huddled, huddling, huddles
To huddle is to crowd together closely for warmth or safety. Huddle round the fire, huddled in the doorway, huddle together.
Emperor penguins do it on a rotation, with the birds on the cold outside working their way steadily into the middle and out again — a solution to a hard problem in fairness. In American football the huddle is where the next play is agreed.
1verbhuddleTo crowd together closely for warmth or safety.
“The children huddled together under a blanket to keep warm.”
huddle is a crowding together.
Middle English hudelen, related to hide, from a Germanic root about covering or pressing together.
Middle English
*hudelen
English, today
huddle
Built from
From Middle English hudelen, alteration (due to hudels, hidels (“hiding place”), see hiddle) of huderen, hoderen (“to cover; press together; huddle”), a frequentative form of Middle English huden, hiden (“to hide”), equivalent to hide + le and/or hide + er. Compare Low German huderken (“to brood; coddle; nurse; lull children to sleep”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA