HENS SITTING.Some hens are very capricious as regards sitting; they will make a great fuss, and keep pining for the nest, and, when they are permitted to take to it, they will sit just long enough to addle the eggs, and then they're off again.

Not I. I let you go round and round; I turned you and twisted you, the oftener the better for me, till at last I got it into your pretty head that turning and twisting was addling your brains, and you had better let me be master.

All this whirl is a carefully prepared plan, worked out by expert flim-flammers to addle the reason, scramble intellect and make of men drooling derelicts.

For all your dagger, wert not for your ging, I would knock my whipstock on your addle-head.

I and my mates, Like addle-pates, Inviting great states To see our last play, Are hunting the hay, With "Ho! that way

See how the old fox teacheth the young cub to worry a sheep; or rather sits himself, like an old goose, hatching the addle brain of Master Amoretto.

[make unproductive] sterilize, addle; disable, inactivate.

render uncertain &c adj.; put out, pose, puzzle, perplex, embarrass; confuse, confound; bewilder, bother, molder, addle the wits, throw off the scent, ambiguas in vulgus spargere voces

rave, dote, ramble, wander; drivel &c (be imbecile) 499; have a screw loose &c n., have a devil; avoir le diable au corps [Fr.]; lose one's head &c (be uncertain) 475. render mad, drive mad &c adj.; madden, dementate^, addle the wits, addle the brain, derange the head, infatuate, befool^; turn the brain, turn one's head; drive one nuts [Coll.].

rave, dote, ramble, wander; drivel &c (be imbecile) 499; have a screw loose &c n., have a devil; avoir le diable au corps [Fr.]; lose one's head &c (be uncertain) 475. render mad, drive mad &c adj.; madden, dementate^, addle the wits, addle the brain, derange the head, infatuate, befool^; turn the brain, turn one's head; drive one nuts [Coll.].

"I should like to know why I'm sitting in this damned train and going to visit a couple of addle-headed society people whom I'm scarcely acquainted with, when I might be at home in my own good company furthering the progress of science.

'We will have no more of innkeeping,' he said; 'I have been sick and tired of it this many a day, and care not now to see men abuse good liquor and addle their silly pates to fill my purse.

A letter, I suppose; well, it will not addle by being for half an hour out of its nest.

From "Fabiola; or, The Church of the Catacombs." ADDLE, to become rotten, as eggs.

"He's not worth the trouble you take for himthe addle-headed, ill-tempered coxcomb," said Mark.

Mounting Addle-hill, and threading Ave-Maria-lane, they entered Warwick-lane, and about half-way up the latter thoroughfare, the doctor stopped before a shop, bearing on its immense projecting sign the representation of a coffin lying in state, and covered with scutcheons, underneath which was written, "ANSELM CHOWLES, COFFIN-MAKER.

Sickened by the sight, he turned up a narrow thoroughfare near Baynard's Castle, and crossing Thames-street, was about to ascend Addle-hill, when he perceived a man wheeling a hand-barrow, containing a couple of corpses, in the direction of the river, with the intention, doubtless, of throwing them into it, as the readiest means of disposing of them.

From this point the four ascents leading to the cathedral, namely, Addle-hill, Saint Bennet's-hill, Saint Peter's-hill, and Lambert-hill, with all their throng of habitations, were burningthe black lines of ruined walls standing in bold relief against the white sheet of flame.

Who but an addle-headed sot would have wandered up and down the lanes, like Morland, chalking out pigs and milkmaids, when he might have been painting, like Barry, pictures, by the acre, of gods and goddesses enacting incomprehensible allegories!

Thus far the poet; but his brains grow addle, And all the rest is purely from his noddle.

What odds if Lord Bazelhurst happened to be a middle-aged, addle-pated ass?

When, after Richard's death, he had to do with John Lackland, cowardly and insolent, knavish and addle-pated, choleric, debauched, and indolent, an intriguing subordinate on the throne on which he made pretence to be the most despotic of kings, Philip had over him, even more than over his brother Richard, immense advantages.

"I'm not behowden to ye for mich, as how 'tisI reckon I addle my mate.

I will addle my brain afresh with the affair of Mr. Weiss and his patient, and let the Blackmore case rip.

Of the Halls of the City Guilds, there is none more quaint, and in greater contrast to the bustle of the neighbourhood, than the Hall of the Brewers' Company, in Addle Street, City.