hugger-mugger
Americannoun
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disorder or confusion; muddle.
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secrecy; reticence.
Why is there such hugger-mugger about the scheme?
adjective
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secret or clandestine.
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disorderly or confused.
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
noun
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confusion
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rare secrecy
adjective
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with secrecy
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in confusion
verb
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(tr) to keep secret
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(intr) to act secretly
Etymology
Origin of hugger-mugger
First recorded in 1520–30; earlier hucker-mucker, rhyming compound based on mucker, from Middle English mokeren “to hoard”
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.
A ripe era for wartime espionage makes for a hugger-mugger entertainment in Lou Ye’s black-and-white historical drama “Saturday Fiction.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 21, 2022
Cornwall, a cottage in a dark hollow surrounded by woods in the hugger-mugger days following the birth of my first son, our horizon hidden behind fat dark rain clouds, November, mud, puddles, bitter winds.
From The Guardian ● May 23, 2020
His smile when he poses with voters is a rictus, he ducks fund-raising calls, and he lacks patience for the backroom hugger-mugger required to pass legislation.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 29, 2018
Which is why in many instances the interests that Pinker dismisses as irrational hugger-mugger, everything from astrology to spiritualism, have tended to strengthen during periods of real scientific ferment.
From New York Times ● Feb. 24, 2018
For much of the last century most Mayanists believed that at its height—200 to 900 a.d., roughly speaking—the Maya realm was divided into a hugger-mugger of more or less equivalent city-states.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
