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
Verb
addled
- simple past and past participle of addle
Adjective
addled (comparative more addled, superlative most addled)
- (of eggs) Bad, rotten; inviable, containing a dead embryo.
- Confused; mixed up.
- (obsolete) Morbid, corrupt, putrid, or barren. [1]
Derived terms
Translations
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References
- ^ “Webster’s Dictionary 1828 edition”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)[1], 2011 April 4 (last accessed), archived from the original on 11 April 2011
Anagrams
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms suffixed with -ed
- English terms derived from Old English
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English non-lemma forms
- English verb forms
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with obsolete senses