Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Simple past tense and past participle of addle.
  • adjective of eggs bad, rotten; inviable, containing a dead embryo
  • adjective Confused; mixed up.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective confused and vague; used especially of thinking
  • adjective (of eggs) no longer edible

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

1712, from addle ("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 (mid-13c.) "egg that does not hatch, rotten egg," lit. "urine egg," a loan translation of Latin ovum urinum, which is itself an erroneous loan translation of Ancient Greek οὔριον ᾠόν (ourion oon, "putrid egg"), lit. "wind egg," from οὔριος (ourios, "of the wind"), from οὖρος (ouros, "fair wind") (confused by Roman writers with οὔριος (ourios, "of urine"), from οὖρον (ouron, "urine")). Because of this usage, the noun in English was taken as an adj. from c. 1600, meaning "putrid,

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Examples

Comments

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  • I learned this word from reading Don Quixote in high school.

    May 5, 2008

  • Hash browns stirred with scrambled eggs while frying.

    Cf this list.

    September 21, 2009

  • "Anyway, I'm not really addled." Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

    October 17, 2010