muddy
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muddy¹
- /ˈmʌdi/ US, UK
Rhymes with -ʌdi
Where it comes from
The adjective is derived from Late Middle English muddi, moddy, muddy (“covered with or full of mud, muddy”), from mud, mudde (“mud; turbid water”) + -i (suffix forming adjectives). Mud, mudde is possibly borrowed from Middle Dutch modde, and/or Middle Low German modde, mudde, from Proto-Germanic *mud-, *mudra- (“mud”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *mū-, *mew- (“moist”). The English word is analysable as mud + -y (suffix meaning ‘having the quality of’ forming adjectives). Doublet of muddle.
The verb is derived from the adjective.
cognates
* Middle Low German moddich, muddich (German Low German muddig (“muddy; mouldy”))
adjective muddier · muddiest
- Covered or splashed with, or full of, mud (“wet soil”). He slogged across the muddy field.
- Of water or some other liquid: containing mud or (by extension) other sediment in suspension; cloudy, turbid. The previously limpid water was now muddy as a result of the struggle between the alligator and the wild boar.
- Of or relating to mud; also, having the characteristics of mud, especially in colour or taste. [H]er garments, heauy vvith her drinke, / Pul'd the poore vvretch from her melodious buy^([sic – meaning lay]), / To muddy death.
- Soiled with feces.
- Of an animal or plant: growing or living in mud. There is a point of strand / Near Vada's tower and town; and on one side / The treacherous marsh divides it from the land, / Shadowed by pine and ilex forests wide, / And on the other creeps eternally, / Through muddy weeds, the shallow, sullen sea.
- Dirty, filthy. There's not the ſmalleſt orbe [in the sky] vvhich thou beholdſt, / But in his motion like an Angell ſings, / Still quiring to the young eide Cherubins; / Such harmony is in immortall ſoules, / But vvhilſt this muddy veſture of decay [i.e., the human body] / Doth groſſely cloſe in it, vve cannot hear
- Not clear. To vvhat, my loue, ſhall I compare thine eyne? / Chriſtall is muddy.
-
Of a colour: not bright: dirty, dull.
Muddy colors are often the result of mixing complementary colors—those opposite each other on the color wheel.
Similar: faint, wan, bland, colourless, dim, dingy, dull, lackluster, leaden, muddy, sad, sober
- Of an image: blurry or dim.
- Of light: cloudy, opaque.
- Of sound (especially during performance, recording, or playback): indistinct, muffled. The television picture is decent, but the sound is muddy.
-
Of speech, thinking, or writing: ambiguous or vague; or confused, incoherent, or mixed-up; also, poorly expressed.
Do'ſt thinke I am ſo muddy, ſo vnſettled, / To appoint my ſelfe in this vexation?
Similar: muddled
- Of the air: not fresh; impure, polluted. Our ovvn muddy atmoſphere, that vvraps us round in obſcurity, though it fails to gild our proſpects vvith ſun-ſhine, or our groves vvith fruitage, nevertheleſs anſvvers the calls of industry.
- Originally, morally or religiously wrong; corrupt, sinful; now, morally or legally dubious; shady, sketchy. [B]y the vvill of God the Heavenly Principle (though it be in it ſelf inviſible and undiſcernible) in due time becomes a Spirit of ſavoury and affectionate diſcernment betvvixt the evil and the good; betvvixt the pure vvaters that flovv from the holy Spirit, and the muddy and tumultuous ſuggeſtions
- Of a person or their facial expression: angry, sad, or sulky.
-
Slightly drunk; tipsy.
[N]ot that he gets drunk, for he is a very pious man, but he is always muddy.
Similar: fuddled, muddled, Adrian Quist, adrip, aled up, all mops and brooms, arseholed, a sheet in the wind, a sheet in the wind's eye, bedrunken, befuddled, beliquored
verb muddies · muddying · muddied
- To cover or splash (someone or something) with mud. If you muddy your shoes don’t wear them inside.
-
To make (water or some other liquid) cloudy or turbid by stirring up mud or other sediment.
This is at the bottom a dictate of common ſenſe, or the inſtinct of ſelf-defence, peculiar to ignorant weakneſs; reſembling that inſtinct, which makes a fiſh muddy the water it ſwims in to allude its enemy, inſtead of boldly facing it in the clear ſtream.
Similar: inturbidate, mud, muddle, roil, stir up
-
To confuse (a person or their thinking); to muddle.
The discussion only muddied their understanding of the subject.
Similar: bemud, confound, entangle, addle, baffle, vex, lose, embroil, stick, stump, baffound, bamboozle
-
To damage (a person or their reputation); to sully, to tarnish.
Similar: blemish, denigrate, stain, assassinate, asperse, backbite, badmouth, befoul, belibel, besmirch, besmear, bewray
- To make (a colour) dirty, dull, or muted. The addition of the second batch of paint muddied the bright colours to a dull and washed look.
- To make (a matter, etc.) more complicated or unclear; to make a mess of (something). As the humans establish tentative bonds with their evolutionary cousins, the inter-species waters start to muddy.
- To make (something) impure; to contaminate.
- To cause or permit (someone or something) to become stuck in mud; to mire. […] I am novv ſir muddied in fortunes mood, and ſmell ſomevvhat ſtrong of her ſtrong diſpleaſure.
-
Sometimes followed by up: to become covered or splashed with mud; to become dirty or soiled.
Similar: mire
- Of water or some other liquid: to become cloudy or turbid. Malt before hops, the world over, or the beer muddies.
- To become contaminated or impure.
muddy²
- /ˈmʌdi/ US, UK
Rhymes with -ʌdi
Where it comes from
From mud (crab) + -y (diminutive suffix).
noun muddies
- The edible mud crab or mangrove crab (Scylla serrata).
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: wet, muddy up, sloughy, quaggy, swampy, miry, marshy, boggy, cloudy, murky, turbid, mucky, mirky, soiled, unclean, dingy
Translations
Every language
Talk about this word "muddy." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/muddy. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. muddy. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/muddy "muddy." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/muddy.Cite this
@misc{muddy_2026,
title = {muddy},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/muddy},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
