1620s as "underdone;" colloquial figurative sense of "silly, immature" is from 1855; see half + bake (v.).
Entries linking to half-baked
half
Old English half, halb (Mercian), healf (W. Saxon) "side, part," not necessarily of equal division (original sense preserved in behalf), from Proto-Germanic *halba- "something divided" (source also of Old Saxon halba, Old Norse halfr, Old Frisian, Middle Dutch half, German halb, Gothic halbs "half"), a word of no certain etymology. Perhaps from PIE root *skel- (1) "to cut," or perhaps a substratum word. Noun, adjective, and adverb all were in Old English.
Used also in Old English phrases, as in modern German, to mean "one half unit less than," for example þridda healf "two and a half," literally "half third." The construction in two and a half, etc., is first recorded c. 1200. Of time, in half past ten, etc., first attested 1750; in Scottish, the half often is prefixed to the following hour (as in German, halb elf = "ten thirty").
To go off half-cocked in the figurative sense "speak or act too hastily" (1833) is in allusion to firearms going off prematurely; half-cocked in a literal sense "with the cock lifted to the first catch, at which position the trigger does not act" is recorded by 1750. In 1770 it was noted as a synonym for "drunk." Bartlett ("Dictionary of Americanisms," 1848) writes that it was "a metaphorical expression borrowed from the language of sportsmen, and is applied to a person who attempts a thing in a hurry without due preparation, and consequently fails."
bake v.
Old English bacan "to bake, to cook by dry heat in a closed place or on a heated surface," from Proto-Germanic *bakan "to bake" (source also of Old Norse baka, Middle Dutch backen, Old High German bahhan, German backen), from PIE *bheg- (source also of Greek phogein "to roast"), extended form of root *bhē- "to warm" (see bath). Related: Baked (Middle English had baken); baking. Baked beans is attested by 1803.