maze
Americannoun
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mazes
plural
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a confusing network of intercommunicating paths or passages; labyrinth.
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any complex system or arrangement that causes bewilderment, confusion, or perplexity.
Her petition was lost in a maze of bureaucratic red tape.
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a state of bewilderment or confusion.
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a winding movement, as in dancing.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a complex network of paths or passages, esp one with high hedges in a garden, designed to puzzle those walking through it Compare labyrinth
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a similar system represented diagrammatically as a pattern of lines
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any confusing network of streets, pathways, etc
a maze of paths
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a state of confusion
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
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
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:
They then moved a light source by hand, illuminating the fins to guide the robot through a maze positioned inside the dish.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 23, 2026
Musk’s mishmash of businesses will be a maze for investors to evaluate.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2026
"It is still essential borrowers do not delay seeking advice to navigate the mortgage maze."
From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026
The refinery -- built in the 1960s in then communist-ruled East Germany -- is a maze of metal pipes, huge tanks and stone chimneys the size of more than 1,200 football fields.
From Barron's ● Sep. 4, 2026
He turned right, and entered what began to seem like a maze of unfamiliar streets.
From "Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher" by Bruce Coville
Scare actors are required to spend time in cramped mazes, often jumping out at people, and Romano says they train for two weeks, with safety being the priority.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 26, 2026
The network has around 200 members and "almost all" embrace the spooky season with a mix of "maize mazes, after-dark trails, scare attractions and pumpkin festivals".
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026
They navigated mazes and remembered previously encountered objects almost as effectively as younger mice, while outperforming similarly aged mice whose EP2 receptors continued functioning normally.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 3, 2026
The building, filled to its ceilings, grew increasingly dilapidated; Langley’s paranoia about suspected intruders led him to build mazes of detritus to throw them off.
From Salon ● Jul. 23, 2026
They don’t mind braiding hair, painting nails, while I sit one step behind them, drawing maps, studying mazes.
From "Paradise on Fire" by Jewell Parker Rhodes
I want to assume I’m headed toward civilization, but America’s public lands are mazed with old roads that peter out far from anything.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 11, 2020
Across the patio, the mazed eyes, mind-sickness, and poignant affection between Galván and what he calls “my family”, echo down 10 years on different faces.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 8, 2019
Passing coffeehouses and boutiques, I arrived at a room mazed by long tables, with cardstock and Sharpie pens as place settings.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 13, 2018
I knew it had to do with being poor, with learning English and studying the mazed map of London.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 21, 2015
The thought set his brain whirling with a wild thrilling happiness, mazed, every alternate moment, with a horrible fear that drove him to the depths of despair.
From The Trail of the Axe A Story of Red Sand Valley by Ridgwell Cullum
It’s mazing how quickly perspective can shift in this league.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 28, 2011
I am the rock, The spiked foundations of the plan ye rear Among the mazing stars.
From Time Magazine Archive
Even this is a guise of one of the original motives in the mazing medley, where it seems we could trace the ancestry of each if we could linger and if it really mattered.
From Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies by Philip H. Goepp
The rays that come to me are but faint cross lights, mazing the obscurity wherein I live.
From Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II by Herman Melville
They struck their tents everywhere; burnt their own Magazines, in some cases; and only went mazing hither and thither,—gravitating all upon Nurnberg, and an impregnable Camp which they have in that neighborhood.
From History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 19 by Thomas Carlyle
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