addlepated

adjective

ad·​dle·​pat·​ed ˈa-dᵊl-ˌpā-təd 

1

: being mixed up : confused

2

: eccentric

Did you know?

In Middle English an adel eye was a putrid egg. The stench of such an egg apparently affected the minds of some witty thinkers, who hatched a comparison between the diminished, unsound quality of an adel eye (or addle egg as it came to be called in modern English) and an empty, confused head—or pate. "Your owne imagination, which was no lesse Idle, then your head was addle all that day," wrote one 17th-century wit at play with the words idle and addle. Today, addle is often found in combination with words referring to one's noggin, as in addlepated, addlebrained, and addle-headed.

Synonyms

• addle
• addled
• bedeviled
• befogged
• befuddled
• bemused
• bewildered
• bushed [chiefly Australian]
• confounded
• confused
• dazed
• distracted
• dizzy
• dopey
• dopy
• fogged
• mixed-up
• muddleheaded
• muzzy
• pixilated
• pixillated
• punch-drunk
• punchy
• raddled
• shell-shocked
• silly
• slaphappy
• spaced-out
• spaced
• spacey
• spacy
• stunned
• stupefied
• zonked
• zonked-out

Examples of addlepated in a Sentence

some addlepated clerk had confused our hotel reservation with that of another, similarly named, party

Word History

Etymology

addle entry 1 + pate entry 2 + -ed entry 1

First Known Use

1614, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Podcast

Get Word of the Day delivered to your inbox!