murky
Americanadjective
adjective
-
gloomy or dark
-
cloudy or impenetrable as with smoke or fog
Synonym Usage
See dark.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of murky
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English mirky; see origin at murk, -y 1
Explanation
Something that's murky is dim, gloomy or hard to see through clearly. Think of the dark fog around a haunted house or the cloudy, muddy water in a swamp. Rarely used before the 17th century, this adjective came about by adding a "y" to the word murk. Murk itself evolved from myrkr, a Norse word for "darkness.” Things that are murky are unclear; that goes for murky, sediment-filled lakes, shady business deals, and arguments that don't seem to make any sense.
Vocabulary lists containing murky
The Diary of Anne Frank
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"The Ravine," Vocabulary from the short story
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List 10
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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.
See Examples For:
"The outlook for working with Wildberries is very murky," she said.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
We can’t be certain, because the evidence in both incidents is murky.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
The conflicting views have painted a murky picture of how AI will affect the job market.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026
I know it’s still murky, but what is the current state of the acquisition of Infowars?
From Slate ● Jul. 12, 2026
The tunnel was damp and murky, and all around him there was the curious bittersweet smell of fresh peach.
From "James and the Giant Peach" by Roald Dahl
Yet once companies have captured the low-hanging fruit, the road forward may get murkier.
From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026
“The truth is murkier and that feels current.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026
If you’re looking at a flight later than this summer, the picture is murkier, but it probably makes sense to hold off for a few weeks if the ticket price is really high.
From Slate ● May 12, 2026
Now, with LIV’s Saudi backers on the brink of turning off the spigot for a business that has hemorrhaged cash, the future is even murkier.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
To acknowledge these horrors means turning away from the brightly rendered version of your country as it has always declared itself and turning toward something murkier and unknown.
From "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
But it’s a joke with depth, pointing to who Vahid really is, and who he isn’t, at just the time when that seems murkiest.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025
The first, “From Dystopia to Our Declaration” by Nijawwon Matthews, is the murkiest.
From New York Times ● Feb. 7, 2024
HKU1 has the murkiest evolutionary history, but its genetic sequence clusters close to the murine hepatitis virus, suggesting it has a rodent origin.
From Science Magazine ● Jan. 11, 2024
The fate of the Dhammazedi Bell is one of Myanmar's murkiest mysteries and for some Burmese a lifelong obsession.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2014
I had seen the number on the radio in Greg’s memory only a few hours earlier, burning brightly through even the murkiest clouds of his thoughts.
From "The Darkest Minds" by Alexandra Bracken
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.
