Was Riddled with Bullets?

1 adj If something is riddled with bullets or bullet holes, it is full of bullet holes. The bodies of four people were found riddled with bullets. 2 adj If something is riddled with undesirable qualities or features, it is full of them. They were the principal shareholders in a bank riddled with corruption...

Where did the term riddled with bullets come from?

2 Answers. According to Wiktionary, its etymology is: From Middle English riddil, ridelle ‎(“sieve”), from Old English hriddel ‎(“sieve”), alteration of earlier hridder, hrīder, from Proto-Germanic *hridą ‎(“sieve”), from Proto-Germanic *hrid- ‎(“to shake”), from Proto-Indo-European *krey-.

What does it mean to be riddled with something?

If an object is riddled with something, that means it's covered by that thing: for example, a tree trunk might be riddled with tiny holes made by the beaks of woodpeckers.