muddy
Americanadjective
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abounding in or covered with mud.
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not clear or pure.
muddy colors.
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cloudy with sediment.
muddy coffee.
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dull, as the complexion.
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not clear mentally.
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obscure or vague, as thought, expression, or literary style.
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Horse Racing. denoting the condition of a track after a heavy, continuous rainfall has ceased and been completely absorbed into the surface, leaving it the consistency of thick mud.
verb (used with object)
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to make muddy; soil with mud.
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to make turbid.
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to cause to be confused or obscure.
verb (used without object)
adjective
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covered or filled with mud
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not clear or bright
muddy colours
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cloudy
a muddy liquid
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(esp of thoughts) confused or vague
verb
Other Word Forms
- muddily adverb
- muddiness noun
- unmuddied adjective
- unmuddy adjective
Etymology
Origin of muddy
First recorded in 1375–1425, muddy is from the late Middle English word muddi. See mud, -y 1
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.
While the motives that drive a knight are often human, political, or both, the logic is as miraculous and irrational as a muddy hedge knight crawling out from under a fallen dragon.
From Salon
He was just sitting there on the cold ground, looking at me, and wagging his muddy tail.
From Literature
Buckets of melted snow leaked on the ground, creating little muddy rivers.
From Literature
Because the teams fill up their cars with fuel and run a grand prix distance, these have far fewer variables to muddy the picture than single laps.
From BBC
Yet the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, personal consumption expenditures, rose 0.4% in December from the prior month and 3% from a year earlier, muddying the case for rate cuts.
From Barron's
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.
