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to make or become confused.
to make or become rotten, as eggs.
mentally confused; muddled.
rotten:
addle eggs.
Historical Examples

One drink will addle a person’s wits and the second will act as an antidote.
Death Makes A Mistake P.F. Costello

And ever since he had been repeating to himself, “What do they addle?”
A Month in Yorkshire Walter White

No earthly profit unless to addle the brain and leave the pocket empty.
Three Wonder Plays Lady I. A. Gregory

Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling.
Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare

To Richard and to Musa there were homage and flattery enough to addle wiser wits than theirs.
God Wills It! William Stearns Davis

Party debate will addle your pate, ex-parte “facts” bring dizziness.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 105 December 23rd, 1893 Various

“Don’t sit on them with your head downward, or you’ll addle them,” said Mr. Brush, fiercely.
Peg Woffington Charles Reade

I ‘d rather take my chance of a sabre-cut any day than addle my brains with too much thought.
The Daltons, Volume I (of II) Charles James Lever

I’m not behowden to ye for mich, as how ’tis—I reckon I addle my mate.
North, South and Over the Sea M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

But says I to my eye, addle Wildenheim has two much spirit of her own to covet her neighbour’s goods.
Manners, Vol 2 of 3 Frances Brooke

verb
to make or become confused or muddled
to make or become rotten
adjective
(in combination) indicating a confused or muddled state: addle-brained, addle-pated
verb
(Northern English, dialect) to earn (money or one’s living)
v.

1712, from addle (n.) “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,” literally “urine egg,” a loan-translation of Latin ovum urinum, which is itself an erroneous loan-translation of Greek ourion oon “putrid egg,” literally “wind egg,” from ourios “of the wind” (confused by Roman writers with ourios “of urine,” from ouron “urine”). Because of this usage, from c.1600 the noun in English was taken as an adjective meaning “putrid,” and thence given a figurative extension to “empty, vain, idle,” also “confused, muddled, unsound” (1706). The verb followed a like course. Related: Addled; addling.