Definitions
Etymologies
- 1712, from addle ("urine, liquid filth"), from Old English adela ("mud, mire, liquid manure"), cognate with Old Swedish adel ("urine"), Middle Low German adel, Dutch aal ("puddle"). 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 (ourion oon, "putrid egg"), lit. "wind egg," from οὔριος (ourios, "of the wind"), from οὖρος (ouros, "fair wind") (confused by Roman writers with οὔριος (ourios, "of urine"), from οὖρον (ouron, "urine")). Because of this usage, the noun in English was taken as an adj. from c. 1600, meaning "putrid, (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Considering the multitude of arguments you have assigned to me that I did not make, the only one making you look "addled" is you.”
“I think you're a little addled from the shed obsession.”
“You left out the rump rangers, child pornographers, baby rapers, brain addled dope smoking malcontents, and drug pushers as well as the Clintons that make up the Filthy Left wing of the Liberal Losers.”
Think Progress » Rumsfeld on Iran Today = Rumsfeld on Iraq in 2002
“You left out the bush whackers, rump rangers, fifth column traitors, child pornographers, baby rapers, brain addled dope smoking malcontents, serial abortionists, incorrigible violent criminals and drug pushers as well as the Clintons that make up the Filthy Left wing of the Liberal Losers.”
Think Progress » Rumsfeld on Iran Today = Rumsfeld on Iraq in 2002
“And we have a nine-year-old daughter, Emma, who, although she doesn ` t watch enough TV to have her mind addled, is still exposed every now and then to the latest Hollywood drivel aimed at kids.”
“We have an arrogant and ignorant president with a brain addled by long use of alcohol and cocaine and other drugs.”
Think Progress » Rumsfeld Attacks Murtha: Says He Is Undermining Troops, Comforting Enemy
“[sic], Dearest, nearly worn out; duty! duty!! study! study!! clamors at my heels all day long, and at night fatigued and weary I sit down to write with brain addled, thoughts confused, and scarcely strength or energy enough to originate a thought or conceive an idea, and so it is to night, as you perceive from what has preceded, and no hope for the better.”
Letter from Young John Allen to Mollie Houston,March 11, 1857
“But with my brain addled from lack of sleep (plus the other fun side-effects of depression), I’m finding it very hard to run at full capacity on this.”
“Hey, call me the world’s biggest nay-sayer, but when I was brain-addled from a world-class case of PPD, I would have hated having to strain my brain to figure out what my therapist was saying.”
“Most of these people aren’t Americans and those who are brain addled druggies and 60’s throwbacks.”
Think Progress » Embedded TIME Reporter: Bush Lied In Speech Yesterday About Iraqi Security Forces
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘addled’.
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On with their heads!
Words that make other words with the addition of one letter at the beginning. The resulting words are tagged "behead".
men, his, yes, any, iota, limb, aged, laid, land, lead, read, word and 327 more...
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•Open List: Ways to Get Your Hash Bro...
If you are not familiar with Waffle House, you are still welcome to contribute, but I hope you will sit back and get the gist first.
The Waffle House menu:
HASHBROWNS
all the way, topped, capped, peppered, diced, chunked, covered, smothered, scattered, insulted, smacked, belted and 165 more...
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Bibulosity
Adjectives meaning, or approximating to 'drunk'
Pissed, Ratted, Merry, Tipsy, Legless, Blootered, Mortal, Inebriated, addled, tiddly, stewed, roistered and 39 more...
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October Words-11849
During the month of October, post at least 10 new words to this list. Make sure you cite where you read the word (book/author/pg) and quote the context/sentence where you found it. If someone has a...
desalination, Girn, incongruous, irreparably, pneumatic, metastatic, languorous, menagerie, mottled, valise, moot, deferential and 28 more...
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You loser!
indolent, persona non grata, addled, prolix, otiose, insipid, myopic, sophomoric, sequacious, ragabash, jolterhead, sleathy and 26 more...
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strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Dain's Words
rabble, terminus, archaic, atavism, demiurge, waylay, syzygy, jocoserious, quark, entropy, cinnabar, shamble and 912 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (A)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
abalone, abbey, abundant, aconite, acorn, addled, adept, aeon, aerie, aglow, ague, aire and 99 more...
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A Dram Too Many
notanotherjazzpoet had a very promising list which appears to have petered out. Yes, tosspots: descriptions of being drunk. Walk five metres on the white line then leave your suggestions right here.
drunk, guttered, pissed, baked, three sails in th..., smashed, paralytic, out of your tree, hammered, bombed, glazed, blotto and 336 more...
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pword
vexatious, verdigris, variegated, wellspring, vituperate, virtuostic, tribulation, transcedental, seupervening, sedulity, reproach, refulgent and 347 more...
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silverthread's Words
kerfuffle, ponder, hither, thither, persnickety, manhandle, fondle, snarky, trundle, truffle, fluffy, mangle and 90 more...
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Words That Populate My Mind
This is a collection of words I love, old ones that I love the sound of when I repeat them for years and new ones coined in news articles on up and coming trends and technologies - most of them I k...
aroma, mojo, blithely, fringe, fray, synchronicity, doublespeak, buzzword, thoughtcrime, portmanteau, newspeak, oldspeak and 963 more...
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mad the wordie
words that I like
sparsile, inchoate, asparagus, dendrochronology, primifluous, psalloid, cetacean, roots, birches, spires, mythopeia, intricate and 167 more...
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vocab
numinous, gloze, diffident, soporific, lissome, rebarbative, trope, deliquesce, abjure, obdurate, pugilistic, puerile and 265 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for addled.
JTroyer "Anyway, I'm not really addled." Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen Oct 17, 2010
hernesheir Hash browns stirred with scrambled eggs while frying.
Cf this list. Sep 21, 2009
salome I learned this word from reading Don Quixote in high school. May 5, 2008