muddle Hear it!

muddle Definition

mud·dle (mud'l)

transitive verb -·dled, -·dling

  1. to mix up in a confused manner; jumble; bungle
  2. to mix or stir (a drink, etc.)
  3. to make (water, etc.) turbid
  4. to confuse mentally; befuddle, as with alcoholic liquor
  5. to confuse (the brain, mind, etc.); befog

Etymology: < mud + -le

intransitive verb

to act or think in a confused way

noun

  1. a confused or disordered condition; mess, jumble, etc.
  2. mental confusion

muddle Idioms

muddle through

Chiefly Brit. to manage to succeed in spite of apparent blunders or confusion

muddle Synonyms

muddle

n.

  1. Confusion

    confusion, mess, jumble; see confusion 2.

  2. Difficulty

    perplexity, quandary, predicament, pother, dilemma, complication, intricacy, complexity, awkwardness, involvement, emergency, struggle, unmanageableness, encumbrance, jam*, pickle*; see also difficulty 2, puzzle. See syn. study at confusion.

muddle Synonyms

muddle

v.

  1. To confuse; said of affairs

    stir up, misarrange, disarrange, entangle, foul, mix, jumble, bungle, derange, shake up, mess, botch, potter, clutter, snarl, pi, complicate, disorder; see also confuse.

  2. To confuse; said usually of people

    disturb, perturb, ruffle; see confuse.

muddle Usage Examples

Object

  • thinking: Once you do, the compiler can help you to spot all sorts of silly mistakes arising from muddled thinking.
  • bit: That can get a bit muddled in three hours.
  • thought: Thus the Incarnation cannot be set aside simply as muddled thought.
  • message: Back at home, the muddled messages over the war against drugs continue.
  • thing: Here the Minutes Committee has also muddled things a little.
  • word: Yes or No. Even John Prescott could not get those two words muddled up.

Used with why or when

  • when: However, opinions and sympathies become more muddled when the issues are family relations, religion, and sexuality.

Adjective modifier

  • hopeless: The whole thing is in danger of descending into a hopeless muddle.
  • current: Completion of the changeover would have many benefits in addition to resolving the current muddle.
  • conceptual: Although a problem in computer ethics may seem clear initially, a little reflection reveals a conceptual muddle.

Modifying Another Word

  • hopelessly: Now our affairs are hopelessly muddled by strong, silent men.
  • somewhat: However, due to a faulty reconditioned unit, the rectification process became somewhat muddled.
  • rather: This leads to a rather muddled plot with the local lemurs, led by Sacha Baron Cohen.
  • slightly: This can make the movie slightly muddled at times.
  • sometimes: The atmosphere got even more informal after dinner, when we were trying to do a little Scottish dancing and getting quite muddled sometimes.
  • little: Both do their best, but look a little muddled with the whole enterprise themselves.

Followed by an intransitive particle

  • through: They muddle through, some more successfully than others.
  • along: I assured him we would muddle along without him.
  • up: Why should the Frank Skinner show be muddled up with section 28 anyway?
  • around: So I went back and had another look and muddled around in the menus a bit more.
muddle Quotes

   Ah, Rachel, aw a muddle! Fro'first to last, a muddle!

—Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam

Far too many relied on the classic formula of a beginning, a muddle, and an end. Larwood

—Larkin, Philip Arthur

He was a sociologist; he had gotten into an intellectual muddle early on in life and never managed to get out.

—Murray, Les(lie Allan)

  The foreign policy of the noble Earl,Lord Russell, may be summed up in two truly expressive words: meddle and muddle.

—Derby, Edward Geoffrey Smith Stanley, 14th Earl of

All are deceptions, substitutes for the hard job of using reason and industry and intuition and compassion to solve even a little bit of the muddle with humaneness and awe for the natural world and the complexity of human beings.

—Wilson, SirAngus FrankJohnstone

Browse dictionary entries near muddle

  1. mudder
  2. mudcat
  3. mud turtle
  4. mud snake
  5. mud puppy
  6. mud hen
  7. mud flat
  8. mud eel
  9. mud dauber
  10. mud crack
  1. muddle-headed
  2. muddle through
  3. muddled
  4. muddler
  5. muddy
  6. mudfish
  7. mudflap
  8. mudflow
  9. mudguard
  10. mudhole