maze
[meyz]
- a confusing network of intercommunicating paths or passages; labyrinth.
- any complex system or arrangement that causes bewilderment, confusion, or perplexity: Her petition was lost in a maze of bureaucratic red tape.
- a state of bewilderment or confusion.
- a winding movement, as in dancing.
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- Chiefly Dialect. to daze, perplex, or stupefy.
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Origin of maze
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
convolutionpuzzletwistwindingperplexitytanglewebnetworkhodgepodgemuddlemeshimbroglioknotentanglementmorassbewildermentskeinuncertaintyquandaryintricacyExamples from the Web for maze
Contemporary Examples
Everything legal and worth making money from is like a maze.
The maze ends in an expansive Zen garden, complete with a pebble pool-pit and a vast mirror along one wall.
But what was it like for the participants who tried to complete the maze?
Are You Smarter Than a Mouse? Excerpt from Smarter: The New Science of Building Brain PowerDan Hurley
January 10, 2014
Center court was where the eleven arms of the maze met in the middle.
Are You Smarter Than a Mouse? Excerpt from Smarter: The New Science of Building Brain PowerDan Hurley
January 10, 2014
What is most important is that Brody has been sent into a maze of tunnels, if you like.
Damian Lewis Spills On ‘Homeland’s’ Shocking Plot Twist and Brody’s ReturnAndrew Romano
October 14, 2013
Historical Examples
She was lost, for the instant, in a maze of disagreeable reflection.
Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton CampusJessie Graham Flower
To him the winter passed in a maze of doubt and self-contempt.
The Incomplete AmoristE. Nesbit
Paris was going on—all that muddle and maze of worried people.
The Incomplete AmoristE. Nesbit
One of the first things he did to make himself famous was to build a maze.
Classic MythsMary Catherine Judd
The tug's hull was practically filled with a maze of machinery.
The Cruise of the Dry DockT. S. Stribling
maze
- a complex network of paths or passages, esp one with high hedges in a garden, designed to puzzle those walking through itCompare labyrinth (def. 1)
- a similar system represented diagrammatically as a pattern of lines
- any confusing network of streets, pathways, etca maze of paths
- a state of confusion
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- an archaic or dialect word for amaze
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Word Origin
C13: see amaze
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for maze
n.
c.1300, "delusion, bewilderment" (also as a verb, "stupefy, daze"), possibly from Old English *mæs, which is suggested by the compound amasod "amazed" and verb amasian "to confound, confuse" (see amaze). Perhaps related to Norwegian dialectal mas "exhausting labor," Swedish masa "to be slow or sluggish." Meaning "labyrinth" first recorded late 14c.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper