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muddle

[muhd-l]

Example Sentences Origin

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verb (used with object)

to mix up in a confused or bungling manner; jumble.

to cause to become mentally confused.

to cause to become confused or stupid with or as if with an intoxicating drink.

to make muddy or turbid, as water.

to mix or stir (a cocktail, chocolate, etc.).

EXPAND

Ceramics. to smooth (clay) by rubbing it on glass.

COLLAPSE

verb (used without object)

to behave, proceed, or think in a confused or aimless fashion or with an air of improvisation: Some people just muddle along, waiting for their big break.

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Muddle is one of our favorite verbs.

So is bowdlerise. Does it mean:

to bark; yelp.

to expurgate (a written work) by removing or modifying passages considered vulgar or objectionable.

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noun

the state or condition of being muddled, especially a confused mental state.

a confused, disordered, or embarrassing condition; mess.

Verb phrase

10.

muddle through, to achieve a certain degree of success but without much skill, polish, experience, or direction: None of us knew much about staging a variety show, so we just had to muddle through.

Origin:
1540–50; mud + -le; cognate with Middle Dutch moddelen to muddy

Related forms

mud·dled·ness, mud·dle·ment, noun

mud·dling·ly, adverb

pre·mud·dle, noun, verb (used with object), -dled, -dling.

un·mud·dled, adjective

Synonyms
1. confuse, botch, bungle, spoil.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To muddle

Example Sentences

Peel the lemons and muddle the peels with the sugar.

Somehow, however, he has managed to shine a veneer of impartiality on the entire muddle.

The coalition government is in a muddle about taxing wealth.

EXPAND

Peel the lemons and muddle the peels with the sugar.

Somehow, however, he has managed to shine a veneer of impartiality on the entire muddle.

The coalition government is in a muddle about taxing wealth.

Using the heel of a butter knife, muddle for about a minute until it forms a tea.

Marijuana is infamous for its ability to muddle thoughts and dull reactions.

Those who would let a fading language go extinct argue that the fewer languages around to muddle understanding, the better.

However, this situation may not be the hopeless muddle it appears.

So not only are the parties left to muddle through, but they are muddling through in public.

The bad news is, large parts were an unconvincing muddle.

God is a happenstance muddle of other evolved mental parts.

Many news outlets covered the paper, and many made a muddle of it.

Congratulations on finding yourself in one thoroughly modern muddle.

When protégé and mentors are too close, their differential status can muddle things.

These add to a sense of policy muddle in the region.

The beneficiary of all this drift and muddle ought to be the opposition.

The obstacles to fundamental change are so forbidding that leaders will always be tempted to try to muddle through.

The government swiftly got itself into a muddle over drugs policy.

Psychological operations are supposed to muddle the messages of foreign enemies or disrupt their communications.

Politics is a muddle of moral and practical compromise.

We all went through the poverty of grad school but you muddle through.

The bad news is that the organization of the show is something of a muddle.

The bigger flaw in the plan is that it seeks to muddle through the sovereign-debt crisis rather than get on top of.

It is only on reflection afterward that you fully realize what an emotional and intellectual muddle the play.

The proposed compromise is a muddle that will put men in the dark and make women no safer.

In large pitcher, combine gin and rinds, and muddle for two minutes.

Machines that seem to think prompted the same mixture of muddle and panic then that they do now.

Doherty had helped the area muddle through a long, congested, but not too awful rush hour.

At first the government tried to muddle through by trying to recapitalise the insurer.

Efficiency and muddle have evidently swapped places.

There is a profound muddle about what a default would entail.

How he dodges this dilemma and gets into a muddle forms one of the amusing gestures in the tale.

The world economy may well muddle through, as it has so often in the past.

The film is as much of a visual muddle as a dramatic one.

If you muddle through your tasks, your bonus is that you get demoted.

Some of us muddle our way through those nine months.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

muddle (ˈmʌd^əl)

—vb
1.	(often foll by up) to mix up (objects, items, etc); jumble
2.	to confuse
3.	to make (water) muddy or turbulent
4.	(US) to mix or stir (alcoholic drinks, etc)

—n
5.	a state of physical or mental confusion

[C16: perhaps from Middle Dutch moddelen to make muddy]

'muddled

—*adj*

'muddledness

—n

'muddlement

—n

'muddling

—*adj*, —n

'muddlingly

—*adv*

'muddly

—*adj*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

muddle

1590s, perhaps frequentative of mud (q.v.), or from Du. moddelen "to make (water) muddy," from the same P.Gmc. source. Sense of "make confused" first recorded 1680s. Related: Muddled; muddling.

FOLDOC

Computing Dictionary

Muddle definition

Original name of MDL.

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