muddle

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.