addled

English

Etymology

From Middle English addledd, 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 loan translation of Latin ovum urinum, which is itself an erroneous loan translation of Ancient Greek οὔριον ᾠόν (oúrion ōión, “putrid egg”), lit. “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 adj. from c. 1600, meaning “putrid”.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈæ.dəld/

Verb

addled

1. simple past and past participle of addle

Adjective

addled (comparative more addled, superlative most addled)

1. (of eggs) Bad, rotten; inviable, containing a dead embryo.
2. Confused; mixed up.
   • 2011, Philip A. G. Kelly, My Odyssey, page 90:

     […] my addled brain required as much sleep as an infant.

3. (obsolete) Morbid, corrupt, putrid, or barren.

Derived terms

• drug-addled

 

Translations

rotten (of eggs)

• Dutch: rot (nl)
• Greek: κλούβιος (el) (kloúvios)
• Latvian: vanckars m (an egg with a half-developed dead embryo), sapuvusi f (rotten)
• Russian: проту́хший (ru) (protúxšij)

Anagrams

• daddle