addled
/ˈæ.dəld/
addled is the simple past and past participle of addle.
Adjective
addled (comparative more addled, superlative most addled)
- Bad, rotten; inviable, containing a dead embryo.
- He was touched in the cavity where his heart should have been—in that nest of addled eggs, where the birds of heaven would have lived if they had not been whistled away—by the fervour of this reproach.1854, Charles Dickens, “Very ridiculous”, in Hard Times. For These Times, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC, 3rd book (Garnering), page 275
- I haven’t a bit o’ patience with you—sitting on an addled egg for ever, as if there was never a fresh un in the world.1861, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XI, in Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC
- Confused; mixed up.
- coke-addled
- crack-addled
- Synonyms:
- addleheaded, addlebrained, addlepated, muddled, muddied, muddle-headed
- Morbid, corrupt, putrid, or barren.
Meaning of addle
Verb (1)
addle (third-person singular simple present addles, present participle addling, simple past and past participle addled)
- To make or become addled; to muddle or confuse.
- to addle someone's brain
- 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.1782, William Cowper, Pairing Time Anticipated
Verb (2)
addle (third-person singular simple present addles, present participle addling, simple past and past participle addled)
- 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."1855, "An inhabitant" [pseudonym; Francis Kildale Robinson], A Glossary of Yorkshire Words and Phrases, Collected in Whitby and the Neighbourhood. With Examples of their Colloquial Use, and Allusions...
- To thrive or grow; to ripen.
- Kill ivy, or else tree will addle no more.1557 February 13 (Gregorian calendar), Thomas Tusser, A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie, London: […] Richard Tottel, →OCLC; republished London: […] Robert Triphook, […], and William Sancho, […]...
Synonyms of addled
Forms of addled
| comparative | more addled |
|---|---|
| superlative | most addled |
Origin of addled
From Middle English addled, adyld, equivalent to addle (“urine, liquid filth”) + -ed. Addle derives from Old English adel, adela (“mud, mire, liquid manure”), cognate with Old Swedish adel (“urine”), Middle Low German adel, Dutch aal (“manure”). Used in noun phrase addle egg (mid-13c.) “egg that does not hatch, rotten egg”, lit. “urine egg”, a calque of Latin ovum urinum, which is itself an erroneous calque of Ancient Greek οὔριον ᾠόν (oúrion ōión, “putrid egg”, literally “wind egg”), from οὔριος (oúrios, “of the wind”), from οὖρος (oûros, “fair wind”) (confused by Roman writers with οὔριος (oúrios, “of urine”), from οὖρον (oûron, “urine”)). Because of this usage, the noun in English was taken as an adjective from c. 1600, meaning “putrid”.
Words formed from addled
Questions about addled
- What does addled mean?
- Addled means bad, rotten; inviable, containing a dead embryo.
- What is addled the simple past and past participle of?
- Addled is the simple past and past participle of addle.
- What part of speech is addled?
- Addled is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce addled?
- Addled is pronounced /ˈæ.dəld/.
Words near addled in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: addled (page history and authors); addle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-addled.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-addled.wav.
Cite this entry: “addled.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/addled. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.