Category:Muddle

Mud"dle, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Muddled; p. pr. & vb. n. Muddling.] Etym: [From Mud.]

1. To make turbid, or muddy, as water. [Obs.] He did ill to muddle the water. L'Estrange.

2. To cloud or stupefy; to render stupid with liquor; to intoxicate partially. Epicurus seems to have had brains so muddled and confounded, that he scarce ever kept in the right way. Bentley. Often drunk, always muddled. Arbuthnot.

3. To waste or misuse, as one does who is stupid or intoxicated. [R.] They muddle it [money] away without method or object, and without having anything to show for it. Hazlitt.

4. To mix confusedly; to confuse; to make a mess of; as, to muddle matters; also, to perplex; to mystify. F. W. Newman.

muddle Mud"dle, v. i.

1. To dabble in mud. [Obs.] Swift.

2. To think and act in a confused, aimless way.

muddle Mud"dle, n.

Defn: A state of being turbid or confused; hence, intellectual cloudiness or dullness. We both grub on in a muddle. Dickens.