half-baked
Americanadjective
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insufficiently cooked.
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not completed; insufficiently planned or prepared.
a half-baked proposal for tax reform.
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lacking mature judgment or experience; unrealistic.
adjective
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insufficiently baked
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informal foolish; stupid
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informal poorly planned or conceived
Etymology
Origin of half-baked
First recorded in 1615–25
Explanation
You can use the adjective half-baked to describe your sadly underdone cupcakes, or in a figurative way to criticize your brother's crazy business idea. When something's half-baked, it's just never going to work. If your plan for moving to Iceland is half-baked, it means you haven't thought the whole thing through. This metaphorical meaning came from the original definition of half-baked, literally "baked halfway" or "underdone." If something's half-baked, nobody wants to eat it — it's useless. An idea or plan, likewise, is half-baked if isn't worth wasting time on.
Vocabulary lists containing half-baked
Idioms and Expressions, List 2
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The first efforts went into half-baked compliance cars, built in small numbers to satisfy California’s advanced-vehicle technology mandate—a conspiracy of lameness.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 23, 2026
Meta’s Quest headsets were still clunky, and the software looked half-baked.
From Barron's • Jan. 16, 2026
Critics were given seven episodes to preview out of the first season’s nine installments, enough to confirm that any emerging theories about its meaning can only be half-baked.
From Salon • Nov. 26, 2025
Those who watch the live-action remake "will not get the same experience," insists Mr Guerrero, who expects the result to be "a half-baked story" where key plot points will be missing.
From BBC • Aug. 22, 2025
It was a bad habit, Mitchell Sanders said, because all that matters is the raw material, the stuff itself, and you can’t clutter it up with your own half-baked commentary.
From "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
