Addlestone

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A town in the English county of Surrey, located in the southeast of England near the River Thames
2. A settlement in Surrey, England, situated on the western edge of the Greater London area
3. A place name referring to a town in the county of Surrey in southern England

Etymology: Addlestone is a town in Surrey, England, on the River Thames near Weybridge, and its name is an ordinary English place-name built from two elements. The first, "addle," comes from Old English "adela," meaning mud or liquid filth, a word that survives in modern dialect "addle" for stagnant or muddy water. The second element, "stone," here is the common Old English word for a stone, probably used in the sense of a stone or paved landmark on a waterside or ford where the ground was muddy. The sense of the name is therefore descriptive rather than personal: it points to a spot where the land was boggy and where a stone marked a crossing or boundary. Place-names built this way are common across England, and the surface meaning is what the parts suggest without any later story attached. The town's name is recorded in medieval documents in forms close to the modern spelling, so the form has been fairly stable for many centuries.