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.
Meta’s Quest headsets were still clunky, and the software looked half-baked.
From Barron's • Jan. 16, 2026
Ramaphosa's spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said that Judge Madlanga's interim report would not be made public as it was not "helpful to start... debating on something that is half-baked".
From BBC • Dec. 23, 2025
We usually die half-baked, so he finishes the cooking, turning up the heat.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 13, 2025
Can Rachel McAdams sue the attorney general for this half-baked theft of her iconic movie villain?
From Salon • Oct. 13, 2025
Time, as she had done to me for the past eighteen years, will provide them also with the half-baked answers to the surreal life I was about to sever myself from.
From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane
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.
