foggy
Americanadjective
-
foggier,
comparative
-
foggiest
superlative
-
thick with or having much fog; misty.
a foggy valley;
a foggy spring day.
-
covered or enveloped as if with fog.
a foggy mirror.
-
(of thinking, ideas, etc.) dim or unclear as if obscured by fog; vague.
I haven't the foggiest notion of where she went.
- Synonyms:
- muddleheaded, muddled, fuzzy, befuddled
-
Difficulties with memory, concentration, attention, and fatigue left me feeling foggy and muddled much of the time.
-
Photography. affected by fog.
adjective
-
thick with fog
-
obscure or confused
-
another word for fogged
-
no idea whatsoever
I haven't the foggiest
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of foggy
First recorded in 1520–30; fog 2 + -y 1; original sense was “marshy, thick, murky”
Explanation
Something that's foggy is cloudy or murky, filled with fog. A foggy view is blurred and indistinct, just like a foggy mind. Driving on a foggy road can be tricky, since it's more or less like driving inside a cloud. When the inside of your head feels this way — blurry, clouded, and vague — you can also used foggy in a figurative way: "Her memory grew foggy as the years went by." Experts aren't sure whether foggy or fog came first, but in either case they suspect a Scandinavian root.
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:
"Everything was foggy, you couldn't open the window and it stank," she said, showing a picture on her phone of an orange glow partially obscured by thick smoke clouds that had turned the air black.
From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026
How did trucks and tourists and Californians manage the uphills and downhills among inclines and ridges that could be windy or icy or foggy, sometimes all at once?
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 1, 2026
In the fictional, foggy town of “Widow’s Bay”—trying to sell itself as the next Martha’s Vineyard—Matthew Rhys smoothly sails through drama, horror and comedy with impressive range.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026
Separately, the court was shown footage of Tajik, 32, with his hand on the tiller of a small boat which embarked on a Channel crossing during foggy conditions on 17 January.
From BBC ● Jun. 10, 2026
I rubbed my hand over the foggy window and peered out.
From "The Book of Unknown Americans" by Cristina Henríquez
Alan Greenspan’s legacy is alive and well, JPMorgan’s line of succession becomes foggier, and SoftBank releases another wacky PowerPoint.
From Slate ● Jun. 27, 2026
It’s likely that her grief is making the future even foggier.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 25, 2026
"It was even foggier the next day. We came up short at the end, but this week we’ve really been trying to be detail oriented."
From Fox News ● Oct. 16, 2021
To open a show about looting with a picture that wasn’t looted does not inspire confidence, and “Afterlives” only gets foggier about what its subject really is.
From New York Times ● Sep. 30, 2021
Next morning dawned colder and foggier than ever, and even Wolf seemed dejected as he led them upstream.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
The seven-week study window covered the time of year when Heber Valley is the foggiest.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 29, 2023
Shifting away from the foggiest areas could save a little time and reduce the risk of accidents.
From Scientific American ● May 1, 2023
On Sunday, Delhi witnessed one of the foggiest days of the season so far, with a thick mist covering the city for several hours.
From BBC ● Jan. 9, 2023
“What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking,” said Doug Lute, a former ambassador who was the top White House official on Afghanistan from 2007–13.
From Slate ● Dec. 9, 2019
“I don’t have the foggiest idea,” Garland said remotely.
From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick
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.
