Word.ws English Dictionary

half-baked

UK/ˌhɑːfˈbeɪkt//ˌhæfˈbeɪkt/

half-baked adjective: of a person or thing: incompletely developed or formed; not fully prepared or trained.

Adjective

half-baked (comparative more half-baked, superlative most half-baked)

  1. (figuratively, informal, frequently derogatory) Of a person or thing: incompletely developed or formed; not fully prepared or trained.
    • And idolatrous parents hovv carefull they are to nuzzle vp their Poſterity in Superſtition and Idolatry; I vvould our profeſt Popelings, and halfe-baked Proteſtants, did not let vs ſee but too often.1621 June 29 (date delivered; Gregorian calendar), Robert Saunderson [i.e., Robert Sanderson], “The Third Sermon. At Grantham Linc[olnshire] 19. Jun. 1621.”, in Twelve Sermons, […], [new] edition...
    • If we would have hired a good mechanic instead of a half baked kikuyu driver, he would have checked the oil and never burned out that bearing in the truck.1936 August, Ernest Hemingway, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, in The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 14 October 1938, →OCLC, page 153
    1. (figuratively, informal, frequently derogatory) Of an idea or scheme; not carefully considered or fully planned; ill-conceived, unsound.
      • The guy had some half-baked idea for getting rich in the stock market.
      • In short, [William Stanley] Jevons thought that sunspots stunted harvests in India, driving up prices in England and driving down the economy. Though Jevons's theory was more than half-baked, it needed more time in the oven, since he forgot to calculate that poor harvests in Asia would hit England...1995 May, Todd G. Buchholz, “The Big Picture”, in From Here to Economy: A Shortcut to Economic Literacy, New York, N.Y.; London: Dutton, →ISBN, page 11
  2. (figuratively, informal, frequently derogatory) Of a person: having no common sense or intelligence; foolish.
    • [H]e treated his cousin as a sort of harmless lunatic, and, as they say in Devon, "half-baked."1855, Charles Kingsley, “Of Two Gentlemen of Wales, and How They Hunted with the Hounds, and yet Ran with the Deer”, in Westward Ho!: Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, […]...
    • Fifty thousand pounds our esteemed father-in-law was proposing to settle upon that half-baked, nitwitted little slypuss.1942 February, Agatha Christie, chapter 12, in The Body in the Library; republished in Starring Miss Marple […], New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1977, →ISBN, page 85
  3. (figuratively, informal, frequently derogatory) Of a person: mildly under the influence of alcohol, a drug, etc.
    • If you need to talk to John tonight, try to catch him early in the evening, while he’s still only half-baked.
  4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: partially cooked by heating in an oven, either as an accidental outcome or as a work in process.
    • Near-synonyms: (dated) dough-baked, underbaked
    • The casserole was half-baked, but I choked it down anyway to be polite.

Noun

half-baked (plural half-bakeds)

  1. (UK, dialectal, informal) A foolish or stupid person; a fool, an idiot.
    • Half-bakeds were not lacking. Under this family name, however, stood various genera described in that day's idiom, more often spoken than written—a speech not elegant, but grounded in truth and winged by fancy—as "sap-heads," "un-mit-i-ga-ted ahsses," "pinky-dinkies," "bone-heads," "pin-heads,"...1920, Kate Stephens, chapter IV, in Life at Laurel Town in Anglo-Saxon Kansas, Lawrence, Kan.: Alumni Association of the University of Kansas, →OCLC, page 102
    • Wanted—by reputable Chicago internist and teacher, […] a young, competent, ethical, progressive, dependable Gentile roentgenographer or roentgen technician; […] no "floaters," "half-bakeds" or "bluffers" need answer, as advertiser is quite competent to judge quality of roentgen work done and fully...1922 June 17, “Assistants Wanted”, in George H[enry] Simmons, editor, The Journal of the American Medical Association, volume 78, number 24, Chicago, Ill.: American Medical Association, →ISSN, →OCLC...

half-baked meaning in Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam

half-baked in Hindi

half-baked, undercooked
अधकचरा adhkacrā

half-baked in Tamil

of a person or thing: incompletely developed or formed; not fully prepared or trained
அரைகுறை araikuṟai

half-baked in Malayalam

ill-judged, ill-conceived, hare-brained
പാതിവെന്ത, പകുതി വേവിച്ച, അരവേവായ, അപക്വമായ, ആപക്വ, വേണ്ടവണ്ണം ആവിഷ്കരിക്കപ്പെടാത്ത
stupid, foolish, silly
മൂഢ, അപക്വ, മണ്ടനായ, വിഡ്ഢിയായ, വിവരം കെട്ട, നിർബുദ്ധിയായ

Examples of half-baked in a sentence

  • When the casserole is half-baked, start preparing the side dishes.
  • Though Jevons's theory was more than half-baked, it needed more time in the oven, since he forgot to calculate that poor harvests in Asia would hit England only after a time lag.1995 May, Todd G. Buchholz, “The Big Picture”, in From Here to Economy: A Shortcut to Economic Literacy, New York, N.Y.; London: Dutton...
  • A half-baked idea, or a generous parting gift for the office? [subtitle]2013 April 16, Paula Cocozza, “Resignation by cake: the sweetest way to say goodbye”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London...
  • Cheap education, cheap ideas, a half-baked bloody nobody.1959, Anthony Burgess, chapter 9, in Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy; 3), London; Melbourne, Vic.: William Heinemann, →OCLC, page 205:
  • I'd always thought her half-baked, but now I think they didn't even put her in the oven.1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter 17, in Jeeves in the Offing, Harmondsworth, Middlesex [London]: Penguin Books, published 1963...

Synonyms of half-baked

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

10 more antonymsFewer antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of half-baked

Forms of half-baked

Adjective
comparativemore half-baked
superlativemost half-baked
alternative formhalfbaked
alternative formhalf baked
Noun
pluralhalf-bakeds

Origin of half-baked

The adjective is derived from half- (prefix meaning ‘incomplete, partial’) or half (adverb) + baked (“cooked by baking; (slang) drunk”, adjective). The noun is derived from adjective sense 1.2 (“of a person: having no common sense or intelligence”).

Words formed from half-baked

Questions about half-baked

What does half-baked mean?
Half-baked means of a person or thing: incompletely developed or formed; not fully prepared or trained.
What is half-baked in Hindi?
Half-baked in Hindi is अधकचरा (adhkacrā). See Half-baked meaning in Hindi.
How do you use half-baked in a sentence?
When the casserole is half-baked, start preparing the side dishes.
What part of speech is half-baked?
Half-baked can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce half-baked?
Half-baked is pronounced /ˌhɑːfˈbeɪkt/ (UK).

Words near half-baked in the dictionary

  1. half-asses
  2. half-assing
  3. half-awake
  4. half-back
  5. half-backs
  6. half-baked
  7. half-bakedness
  8. half-bakeds
  9. half-ball
  10. half-baptism
  11. half-baptisms

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: half-baked (page history and authors); अधकचरा (Hindi) (page history and authors); half-baked (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-half-baked.wav, En-au-half-baked.ogg.

Cite this entry: “half-baked.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/half-baked. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.