Meaning

verb mix up or confuse

verb become rotten

adjective (of eggs) no longer edible

originFrom Middle English addled, adyld, equivalent to addle (“urine, liquid filth”) + -ed. Addle derives from Old English adel, adela (“mud, mire, liquid manure”), cognate with Old Swedish adel (“urine”), Middle Low German adel, Dutch aal (“manure”). Used in noun phrase addle egg (mid-13c.) “egg that does not hatch, rotten egg”, lit. “urine egg”, a calque of Latin ovum urinum, which is itself an…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0