addle
/ˈæ.dəl/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.69 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Unfruitful or confused; muddled.
verb
To cause fertilised eggs to lose viability, by killing the developing embryo within through shaking, piercing, freezing or oiling, without breaking the shell.
noun
An unwise or intellectually impaired person.
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."
Etymology
From 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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
Inflected Forms
more addle (comparative)
most addle (superlative)
addles (plural)
addles (present, singular)
addling (participle, present)
addled (participle, past)
addled (past)