Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To cause (someone) to think unclearly; confuse: synonym: befuddle.
- intransitive verb To become confused.
- intransitive verb To become rotten, as an egg.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To make corrupt or putrid, as eggs.
- Hence To spoil; make worthless or ineffective; muddle; confuse: as, to
addle the brain, or a piece of work. - To manure with liquid.
- To become addled, as an egg; hence, to come to nought; be spoiled.
- noun Liquid filth; putrid urine or mire; the drainage from a dunghill.
- noun The dry lees of wine. Bailey; Ash.
- noun Same as
attle . - Having lost the power of development and become rotten; putrid: applied to eggs. Hence Empty; idle; vain; barren; producing nothing; muddled, confused, as the head or brain.
- noun Laborers' wages.
- To earn; accumulate gradually, as money.
- To produce or yield fruit; ripen.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun obsolete Liquid filth; mire.
- noun Prov. Eng. Lees; dregs.
- verb To make addle; to grow addle; to muddle.
- verb Prov. Eng. To earn by labor.
- verb Prov. Eng. To thrive or grow; to ripen.
- adjective Having lost the power of development, and become rotten, as eggs; putrid. Hence: Unfruitful or confused, as brains; muddled.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb provincial, Northern England To
earn ,earn by labor; earnmoney or one's living. — Forby. - verb provincial, Northern England To thrive or grow; to ripen.
- adjective Having lost the power of development, and become
rotten , as eggs;putrid . - adjective by extension
Unfruitful orconfused , as brains;muddled . John Dryden. - adjective See
addled . - noun obsolete Liquid
filth ;mire . - noun provincial
Lees ;dregs .Wright - verb To make addle; to grow addle; to
muddle ; as, he addled his brain. - verb To cause
fertilised eggs to loseviability , by killing the developingembryo within throughshaking ,piercing ,freezing oroiling , without breaking the shell.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb mix up or confuse
- verb become rotten
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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One need only read the curious doublespeak of the so-called black block anarchists, the group responsible for the only destructive protests at the Vancouver Olympics, to realize what kind of addle-brained morons we're dealing with.
Vue Weekly David Berry / david@vueweekly.com 2010
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We’m kind of addle-headed and over-set, one way and ’tother, and can’t seem to take to any notion.”
Death of a Fool Marsh, Ngaio, 1895-1982 1956
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“She surely deserves it all,” Graham murmured, although vaguely hurt in that the addle-pated, alphabet-obsessed, epicurean anarchist of an Irishman who gloried in being a loafer and a pensioner should even mildly be in love with the Little Lady.
CHAPTER XII 2010
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There are still more addle-brained softballs to come:
Larry Womack: Chronicle's Boxer 'Endorsement' Reasserts Its Irrelevance Larry Womack 2010
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Those were their cards and they had to play them, willy-nilly, hunchbacked or straight backed, crippled or clean-limbed, addle-pated or clear - headed.
Chapter X 2010
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He had not exactly crushed the man's head like an egg-shell, but the blow had been sufficient to addle what was inside, and, after being sick for a week, the man had died.
THE CHINAGO 2010
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There are still more addle-brained softballs to come:
Larry Womack: Chronicle 's Boxer 'Endorsement' Reasserts Its Irrelevance Larry Womack 2010
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Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu agreed and messaged back it was probably just “planted intelligence of the enemy designed to addle us,” but he ordered his embassies to check it out further.
Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller 2011
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There are still more addle-brained softballs to come:
Larry Womack: Chronicle 's Boxer 'Endorsement' Reasserts Its Irrelevance Larry Womack 2010
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Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu agreed and messaged back it was probably just “planted intelligence of the enemy designed to addle us,” but he ordered his embassies to check it out further.
Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller 2011
bilby commented on the word addle
"addled ... by 1712, from addle (n.) 'urine, liquid filth,' from Old English adela 'mud, mire, liquid manure' (cognate with Old Swedish adel 'urine,' Middle Low German adel, Dutch aal 'puddle'). Used in noun phrase addle egg (c.1250) 'egg that does not hatch, rotten egg,' literally 'urine egg,' a loan translation of Latin ovum urinum, which is itself an erroneous loan translation of Greek ourion oon 'putrid egg,' literally 'wind egg,' from ourios 'of the wind' (confused by Roman writers with ourios 'of urine,' from ouron 'urine'). Because of this usage, the noun in English was taken as an adjective from c. 1600, meaning 'putrid,' and thence given a figurative extension to 'empty, vain, idle,' also 'confused, muddled, unsound' (1706). The verb followed."
- dictionary.com
November 2, 2008
jorge999 commented on the word addle
is that why we call them addle-lescents?
November 6, 2009