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addle

adj
/ˈæ.dəl/

Etymology

From Middle English adel (“rotten”), from Old English adel, adela (“mire, pool, liquid excrement”), from Proto-West Germanic *adal, from Proto-Germanic *adalaz, *adalô (“cattle urine, liquid manure”). Akin to Scots adill, North Frisian ethel (“urine”), Saterland Frisian adel (“dung”), Middle Low German adele (“mud, liquid manure”) (Dutch aal (“liquid manure”)), Old Swedish adel (“urine”), Danish ajle (“liquid manure”), Bavarian Adel (“liquid manure”).

  1. inherited from *adalaz✻
  2. inherited from *adal✻
  3. inherited from adela
  4. inherited from adel

Definitions

  1. Having lost the power of development, and become rotten

    Having lost the power of development, and become rotten; putrid.

    • addle eggs
    • Pan. Troilus! Why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle egg. Cres. If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you would eat chickens i' the shell.
    • It was a feathered riddle; a mystery hatched out of an egg, and just as mysterious as if the egg had been addle!

  2. Unfruitful or confused

    Unfruitful or confused; muddled.

    • addle brains
    • Thus far the Poet, but his brains grow Addle; / And all the reſt is purely from this Noddle.
    • She stretched out a great red hand and arm on each side of her, so as to bar the doorway, and slowly nodded her addle head at me.

  3. Liquid filth

    Liquid filth; mire.

  4. ›+ 5 more definitions

    1. To make or become addled

      To make or become addled; to muddle or confuse.

      • to addle someone's brain
      • We still had a big pay-day coming to us, and for thirty-seven days, without a drink to addle our mental processes, we incessantly planned the spending of our money.

    2. To cause fertilised eggs to lose viability, by killing the developing embryo within…

      To cause fertilised eggs to lose viability, by killing the developing embryo within through shaking, piercing, freezing or oiling, without breaking the shell.

      • Their eggs were addled.

    3. An unwise or intellectually impaired person.

    4. To earn, earn by labor

      To earn, earn by labor; earn money or one's living.

      • ADDLINGS, wages. "Poor addlings," small pay for work. "Hard addlings," money laboriously acquired. "Saving's good addling," as the well known saying, "a penny saved is a penny gained."
      • ADDLE. To earn. "It's weel-addled" – well-earned. "Addle nowt an' ware at t' end on 't, an' tha'll soin ha' to leuk raand t' corners." – Earn nothing and spend hard, and you'll soon come to poverty.

    5. To thrive or grow

      To thrive or grow; to ripen.

      • Kill ivy, or else tree will addle no more.

The neighborhood

Derived

addle-brain, addlebrained, addlehead, addleheaded, addlement, addleness, addle pate, addlepated, addle-plot, addlings, drug-addled

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for addle. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA