Not thorough-going; irresolute; sometimes (as in English slang) silly.
1621. And idolatrous parents, how careful they are to nuzzle up their posterity in superstition and idolatry, I would our profest Popelings, and half-baked Protestants did not let us see but too often.—R. Sanderson, ‘Sermon xii.’ (N.E.D.)
a. 1628. They are either done withoute heate, or but half-baked.—Sermon by Preston. (N.E.D.)
1636. Certaine Hermophrodite Divines, meere Centaures in Religion; Saint Augustines Amphibions, in resemblance Iewes and Christians both, in truth neither: Cakes on the hearth not turn’d, certaine dow-bak’d professors, which have a tongue for Geneva, and a heart for Amsterdam; their pretence for Old England, and their project for New.—Humphrey Sydenham’s Sermon on “The Foolish Prophet,” preached ad clerum at Taunton, June 22.
1842. It is sometimes a term of reproach among us in speaking of a silly fellow, that he is “not half baked.”—Mrs. Kirkland, ‘Forest Life,’ i. 41.
1847. Perhaps some of that majority are but half-baked Democrats—need grinding over again.—Mr. Wick of Indiana, House of Repr., Jan. 26: Cong. Globe, p. 264.
