maze

American  

[meyz] / meɪz /

noun

mazes plural

1. a confusing network of intercommunicating paths or passages; labyrinth.

2. any complex system or arrangement that causes bewilderment, confusion, or perplexity.

   Her petition was lost in a maze of bureaucratic red tape.

3. a state of bewilderment or confusion.

4. a winding movement, as in dancing.

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verb (used with object)

mazed, mazing

1. Chiefly Dialect. to daze, perplex, or stupefy.

maze British  

/ meɪz /

noun

1. a complex network of paths or passages, esp one with high hedges in a garden, designed to puzzle those walking through it Compare labyrinth

2. a similar system represented diagrammatically as a pattern of lines

3. any confusing network of streets, pathways, etc

   a maze of paths

4. a state of confusion

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verb

1. an archaic or dialect word for amaze

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• mazedness
  noun
• mazement
  noun
• intermaze
  verb (used with object)
• mazelike
  adjective
• mazedly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• mazes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of maze

1250–1300; Middle English mase, noun use of aphetic variant of amasen to amaze

Explanation

A maze is a puzzle with twists and turns, where you try to find a path from the entrance to the exit without hitting dead ends. You can walk through a maze, or let your pencil do the walking. The goal of a maze is to get through it, which means going the wrong way, retracing your steps, and choosing different paths. There are mazes that you walk through, and mazes on paper where you draw a line to the end. You can also use maze for any complicated system, like the maze of hallways and staircases in an enormous new school. Originally, maze meant "delusion or bewilderment," which captures what it's like to be inside one.

Example Sentences

Five years later, Madison Square Garden was planted atop it, banishing sunlight and driving commuters into a subterranean maze of passageways.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 13, 2026

In a sixth-floor conference room at the end of a maze of hallways in the New York Stock Exchange, Flutter CEO Peter Jackson laid out the firm’s World Cup strategy for Barron’s.

From Barron's • Jun. 11, 2026

To investigate, researchers trained mice to navigate a virtual maze.

From Science Daily • Jun. 8, 2026

The back rooms of the La Brea Tar Pits are, at the moment, a maze of packing crates tagged with handwritten sticky notes that say things like “bison skulls” or “camel hip.”

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 6, 2026

Down among the partitions of the maze, with so many lunch-smelling rooters breathing on him, Ralph had no idea of the direction of the peanut butter.

From "Ralph S. Mouse" by Beverly Cleary