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Addled   /ˈædəld/   Listen
Addled

adjective
1.
(of eggs) no longer edible.
2.
Confused and vague; used especially of thinking.  Synonyms: befuddled, muddled, muzzy, woolly, woolly-headed, wooly, wooly-minded.  "Your addled little brain" , "Woolly thinking" , "Woolly-headed ideas"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Addled" Quotes from Famous Books



... hard hit, old man—I wouldn't give a whoop about the chain in the gold purse. It's just one of the little coincidences that hang people now and then. And as for last night—if she's the kind of a girl you say she is, and you think she had anything to do with that, you—you're addled, that's all. You can depend on it, the lady of the empty house last week is the lady of last night. And yet your train acquaintance was in Altoona at ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... upon a bare floor. He sat up. His head was ringing, and he could feel that his cheek was swelling. His addled wits slowly settled themselves. He moved his head about and took stock, as well as he could, of his ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... and Mistress Betty vindicates her womanliness by jumping at a conclusion and settling in her own mind that his brain is addled with this great London—its politicians, its mohawks, its beggars in Axe Lane, its rich tradesmen in Cranbourne Alley, its people of quality, fashion, and taste in their ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... expected to see a young hawk, and there a goslin, and next a strutting turkey, and then a dodo, a loon, an ostrich, a wren, a magpie, a cuckoo, and a wag-tail. But the old continental hen has now set so long, that we conclude that her eggs are addled, and incubation frustrated. During all this time, the Gallick cock is on his roost at Elba, with his head under ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... the mother's grief No mortal tongue can tell. A broken heart, an addled brain, When ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... assumed delicacy, he was not allowed to go to school for some years, and even when he did attend for a short time the results were not encouraging—his mother being hotly indignant upon hearing that the teacher had spoken of him to an inspector as "addled." The youth was, indeed, fortunate far beyond the ordinary in having a mother at once loving, well-informed, and ambitious, capable herself, from her experience as a teacher, of undertaking and giving him an education better than could be secured in the local schools of the day. Certain it is ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... enough of good in the son of Madame Rameau to revolt at the precise words in which the counsel was given, still, as the fumes of the punch yet more addled his brains, the counsel itself was acceptable; and in that sort of maddened fury which intoxication produces in some excitable temperaments, as Gustave reeled home that night leaning on the arm of stouter ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... kindly gave me the two eggs which he took on that occasion. When I visited Burhou in June, 1876, I was unsuccessful in finding more than part of a broken egg and a wing of a dead bird. But Colonel L'Estrange, who had been there about a fortnight before, found two addled eggs, but saw no birds. I thought at the time that I had been too late and the birds had departed, but this does not seem to have been the case, as Captain Hubback wrote to me in July of this year (1878), and said, "Do you not think that perhaps you were early on the 14th of ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith

... wish to the land I hed,' says I. An' then I come away, for my tongue's so turrible spry an' sarcustic that I knew if I stopped any longer I should stir up strife. There's some folks that'll set on addled aigs year in an' year out, as if there wa'n't good fresh ones bein' laid every day; an' Lije Dennett's one of 'em, when it ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest. Your still fowl, blinking at you without remark, may all the while be sitting on one addled nest-egg; and when it takes to cackling, will have nothing to announce ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... and field work seemed quite in the background, and very insignificant compared with my treasure hunt; but Alec seemed to be quite indifferent to it; in fact, I think he had an idea that my fall had slightly shaken my brain, and perhaps addled it. I more than suspected this, for I noticed he kept his eye ever on me, and would scarcely let me out of his sight. Good, ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... sermon. It would not be fair to the reader to give an abstract of that. When a man who has been bred to free thought and free speech suddenly finds himself stepping about, like a dancer amidst his eggs, among the old addled majority-votes which he must not tread upon, he is a spectacle for men and angels. Submission to intellectual precedent and authority does very well for those who have been bred to it; we know that the underground courses ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... (For Addled parliament, Barebone's parliament, the Devil's parliament, the Drunken parliament, the Good parliament, the Long parliament, the Mad parliament, the Pensioner parliament, the Rump parliament, the Running parliament, the Unmerciful parliament, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... going about his business, and that has addled her wits. There! she is crying upstairs. It will do her good to snivel a bit. It's the first time she has cried since I've been ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... he plunged on, misreading her; "right now, with last night's haul. You'll chuck this addled sentimental pangs-of-conscience lay, hand over the jewels, and—and I'll hand 'em back to you the day we're married, all set and ... as handsome a wedding present as ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... now Sunday morning; there is a most stupendous row at the pianoforte, and, luckily, there is no more space in this paper for my addled brains to testify to the effect of this musical tempest. ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... saved in the end, although some took longer than others, and would win only to backseats. Man's place in the ever-fluxing chaos of the world was definite and pre-ordained—if by no other token, then by denial that there was any ever-fluxing chaos. This was a mere bugbear of mankind's addled fancy; and, by stinging audacities of thought and speech, by vivid slang that bit home by sheerest intimacy into his listeners' mental processes, he drove the bugbear from their brains, showed them the loving ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London

... deadly rifle shot as well; at sixteen he would be able to perform all farm duties and rank with pride and confidence as an efficient burgher to take the field against any enemy. His brain is not addled with school lore, but is thoroughly versed and taught from nature's book. Hardened to the fatigue of long rides over unfamiliar country in search of stray cattle, the Boer youth has often to subsist upon a bit of dried biltong (junked beef or venison), endure ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... sharp distrust. "You interest me strangely, George.... But perhaps you're no more addled than usual. Consider me gently prepared against the worst—and get it ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... ground out between my teeth, a feeling taking possession of me, which is designated "indignation" in the first person but jealousy in the second and third. "You stupid simpleton, that Laplante is a villain who will turn your addled pate and work you as an old wife ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... popped in her head at the door said, How do you do, my children? What are you doing here?' 'Official business, godmother.' 'Oho!' says this wicked Fairy. '- Tape!' And then the business all went wrong, whatever it was, and the servants' heads became so addled and muddled that they ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... bein' a father that a-way to back him into a corner; an' then, ignorin' the rest of us as belongin' to the barb'rous herd, he'd insist on discussin' skunk oil as a remedy for croup. An' the worst of it is he finally has Tutt, who's bad enough before, gyratin' 'round, his addled nose to the sky in redoubled scorn of childless men. From the two sociablest sports in camp it gets so that the uncle in one an' father in the other so far supplants an' shoves aside the mere man in 'em that Job himse'f would have ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis

... notwithstanding all his Platonism. When accused of obscurities and extravagances, he said that, like the ostrich, he laid his eggs in the sands, which would prove vital and prolific in time; however, these ostrich-eggs have proved to be addled. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... Now the other one. Now sit down, and I'll put your hat on for you. Oh, Mrs. Hepworth, do hold your head still! Here, stick this pin in yourself, or I may jab it through your brain,—though I must confess you act as if you hadn't any! or if you have, it's addled. And Ken says that husband of yours is acting just the same way. My! it's lucky you two infants had a capable and clever bridesmaid and best man to get you off! There! take your gloves,—no, don't hold them like that! put them on. Wake up, Christine; remember, the show isn't over yet. You've got ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... to her that's addled her," David explained. "It's these highly charged, hypersensitive young women that go to pieces under the modern pressure. They're the ones that need licking into shape by ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... a while. There was a great stir in his brain; an addled vision of bright outlines; an exciting row of rousing songs and groans of pain. He suffered, enjoyed, admired, approved. He was delighted, frightened, exalted—as on that evening (the only time in his life—twenty-seven ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... the days of their mother before them, when she came here to lay her eggs, like a cuckoo in another bird's nest—I wish they had been addled, I do indeed—we may expect to have the whole place turned topsy-turvy, I suppose. It is a pretty assortment, faith (as Tanty says herself); an old papist, and two young ones, fresh from a convent school—and of these, one a ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... be a good quiz to advertise The Poetical Works of David Hume, with notes, critical, historical, and so forth—with an historical inquiry into the use of eggs for breakfast, a physical discussion on the causes of their being addled; a history of the English Church music, and of the choir of Carlisle in particular; a full account of the affair of 1745, with the trials, last speeches, and so forth, of the poor plaids who were strapped up at Carlisle; and, lastly, a full and particular ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... Ostler being the agent employed in the work and becoming himself (as will be seen) eventually the proprietor. Thus of two eggs which Mr. Parkinson brooded over, and desired to hatch, one may be said to have been addled, and the other did not prove useful ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... accompaniment of music, commenced to feel around in the straw. They pulled out some pea-hen's eggs, which they distributed among the diners. Turning his head, Trimalchio saw what was going on. "Friends," he remarked. "I ordered pea-hen's eggs set under the hen, but I'm afraid they're addled, by Hercules I am let's try them anyhow, and see if they're still fit to suck." We picked up our spoons, each of which weighed not less than half a pound, and punctured the shells, which were made of flour and dough, and as ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... Robert tells me of him he must have been one of the people who get ill in their minds for want of a good mouth-filling laugh now and then. The man who can't amuse himself a bit out of the world is sure to get his head addled somehow, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... a race that had wielded the sword of many centuries, but he was hot, excited, not a little addled with wine and rage. Droulde was lucky; he would come out of the affair with a ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... you, Jabe Slocum?" asked Samantha. "I s'pose it's one o' them everlastin' old addled jokes o' yourn you're tryin' to hatch out, but it's a poor time to be jokin' now. What's the ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... Rome, when in fact she is only a young damsel of Belmont, with half a dozen lovers on hand, on her own showing. And yet this young baggage, whose own father would not trust her to choose a husband, whose brains are addled by her own love affairs, and who had no more business in court than the deacon would have in Chancellor Whiting's suit in the Lowber claim, not only came into court under a fraudulent disguise, argued the case under false ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... and they come out nine, same as the other time. Well, she WAS in a tearing way—just a-trembling all over, she was so mad. But she counted and counted till she got that addled she'd start to count in the basket for a spoon sometimes; and so, three times they come out right, and three times they come out wrong. Then she grabbed up the basket and slammed it across the house and knocked the cat ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... and in thrice-washed test-tubes,—we might indeed say that some of these chemicals had an evil odour, but we could not pronounce them unclean. Prepared in a laboratory, the sulphuretted hydrogen gas which makes the addled egg our national political weapon, is a quite cleanly preparation. Dirt is merely an unhappy mixture of clean substances. The housewife is nearest a scientific view of the matter when she distinguishes between 'clean dirt' and 'dirty dirt,' and does not mind handling coal, for instance, ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... heretical literature, we can confidently defy Professor Flint to produce the names of half a dozen dogmatic Atheists, and we will give him the whole world's literature to select from. Does he think that the brains of an Atheist are addled? If not, why does he make the Atheist first affirm that there is no God, and then affirm the impossibility of man's ever knowing whether there is a God or not? How could a man who holds his judgment in suspense, or who thinks the universal mystery insoluble to us, dogmatise ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... Knightsbridge, and over Barnes Common, would make a beautiful ride." Or, "Do you know, I shouldn't object to an early chop at some village inn?" Or, "Not knowing whether my head was off or on, it became so addled with work, I have gone riding the old road, and should be truly delighted to meet or be overtaken by you." Or, "Where shall it be—oh, where—Hampstead, Greenwich, Windsor? WHERE?????? while the day is bright, not ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... racing mind, searching a momentary flash of clearness in which he can find mirrored some delicate beauty or truth, he tosses between the alternatives of self-grandeur and self-disgust. It is a painful matter, this endless self-scrutiny. We are all familiar with the addled ego of literature—the writer whom constant self-communion has made vulgar, acid, querulous, and vain. And yet it is remarkable that of so many who meddle with the combustible passions of their own minds so few are blown ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... may take it from me, That of all the afflictions accurst With which a man's saddled And hampered and addled, A diffident nature's the worst. Though clever as clever can be - A Crichton of early romance - You must stir it and stump it, And blow your own trumpet, Or, trust me, you ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... his nation, who sees the most birds in his nest, and is able to carry most vultures to prey upon the corpses of his enemies. Is the barren woman beloved by her husband? Ask me if the male bird watches by the nest of her who sits on addled eggs. I shall tell you "No," nor does the husband love or value the wife who lives alone in his cabin with none ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... last of the dinner service that had belonged to his grandmother, old Vixen Tod. Then the midges had been very bad. And he had failed to catch a hen pheasant on her nest; and it had contained only five eggs, two of them addled. Mr. Tod had ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter

... to decide authoritatively what is a new-laid egg the Board of Agriculture has sought information from various sources, but is reported to be still sitting. There is some fear that the definition will be addled. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various

... natives reported to be ahead of him, was in reality the Zambezi, for he held in his hand a map manufactured at home, and so conveniently manipulated as to clear up a great difficulty by simply inserting "New Zambezi" in the place of the Chambeze. As we now see, Livingstone handed back this addled geographical egg to its progenitor, who, we regret to say, has not only smashed it in wrath, but has treated us to so much of its savour in a pamphlet written against the deceased explorer, that few will care to turn over ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... float in the shimmer, like ashes tossed aloft by the white draught of a fire! Behold these ancient buildings nodding to the everlasting lullaby of the bay waters! The cliffs are black with the heat apoplexy; the lobster is drawn scarlet to the surface. You shall be like an addled egg ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... "I'm out here to ranch. That's what I've come for, that's what I've worn my skin to the bone for on the most outrageously uncomfortable saddle I've ever thrown a leg over. That's why I took the trouble to keep on chasing up this place when my brain got plumb addled at the sight of so much grass. That's why I didn't go back to find the feller—and shoot him—for advising me to get off at Moosemin instead of hitting back on my tracks for the right place to change trains. You see, ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... finally said, when no one knew exactly just what to say. "All day long I thought of something which would not come into my fool head, because we were so busy and happy. I never forgot it in England, but here my poor head is so addled that I am forgetful of even the most ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller

... title to Irish Estate. CHAPTER XX. The City and the Plantation of Virginia. Public Lotteries in aid of the Plantation. Copland's Sermon at Bow Church. The King's pecuniary difficulties. The Marriage of the Princess Elizabeth. The King entertained by the City. The Addled Parliament. Peter Proby, Sheriff and Ex-Barber. A general muster of City trained bands. A Commission of Lieutenancy granted to the City. The Company of Merchant Adventurers suppressed. Knights of the Bath ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe



Words linked to "Addled" :   stale, confused



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