/ˈæ.dəl/
OriginFrom 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”).
- 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!”
- broadlyUnfruitful 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.”
- obsoleteLiquid filth; mire.
- An unwise or intellectually impaired person.
- To make or become addled; to muddle or confuse.
“to addle someone's brain”
“The same female bard—descended, possibly, from those terrible old Scalds who seem to have existed for the express purpose of addling the brains of mankind when they begin to investigate languages—made”
“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.”
- 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.”
“The term shocking or addling trout and salmon eggs is applied to the process of turning the infertile eggs white so they can be separated from the fertile ones. Actually, this amounts to nothing more ”
- Northern-EnglandTo 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.”
- Northern-EnglandTo thrive or grow; to ripen.
“Kill ivy, or else tree will addle no more.”
Formsmore addle(comparative) · most addle(superlative) · addles(plural) · addles(present, singular, third-person) · addling(participle, present) · addled(participle, past) · addled(past)