Meaning

Having lost the power of development, and become rotten; putrid..

Definitions by Sense

1. Having lost the power of development, and become rotten; putrid.
2. (by extension) Unfruitful or confused; muddled.
3. (obsolete) Liquid filth; mire.
4. To make or become addled; to muddle or confuse.
5. To cause fertilised eggs to lose viability, by killing the developing embryo within through shaking, piercing, freezing or oiling, without breaking the shell.
6. An unwise or intellectually impaired person.
7. (provincial, Northern England) To earn, earn by labor; earn money or one's living.
8. (provincial, Northern England) To thrive or grow; to ripen.

Example Sentences

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!

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.

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 a standing pretence which greatly assisted in forcing me back to a number of hideous places that I would by all means have avoided.

Word Forms

• more addle
• most addle
• addles
• addling
• addled

Synonyms for addle

Related Words

When Should You Use Addle?

Use addle when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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