Bredouille sounds very French and of course it is. Today it means something like “things”, in the beginning it meant “mud, dirt”. Anyone who was in trouble was stuck in the mud. And why mud? This comes from the so-called trick track game (also known as throwing zabel or puff). This was a medieval board game played with dice. If one of the players managed to drive his opponent so far into the corner that he could no longer move, he had gotten him into trouble.
