Addled
English
Verb
addled
- Simple past tense and past participle of addle.
Adjective
Addled (comparative more Addled, superlative most Addled)
- (of eggs) Inviable. Containing a dead embryo.
- morbid, corrupt, putrid, or barren. (obs.)[1]
- Confused; mixed up.
Etymology
1712, from addle (n.) "urine, liquid filth," from O.E. adela "mud, mire, liquid manure" (cognate with O. Swed. adel "urine," M.L.G. adel, Du. aal "puddle"). Used in noun phrase addle egg (mid-13c.) "egg that does not hatch, rotten egg," lit. "urine egg," a loan translation of L. ovum urinum, which is itself an erroneous loan translation of Gk. ourion oon "putrid egg," lit. "wind egg," from ourios "of the wind" (confused by Roman writers with ourios "of urine," from ouron "urine"). Because of this usage, the noun in English was taken as an adj. from c.1600, meaning "putrid," and thence given a figurative extension to "empty, vain, idle," also "confused, muddled, unsound" (1706). The verb followed.[2]
