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:
But law scholars are split on the issue that opens the door to a murky legal maze pitting the reach of a presidential pardon against the scope of the Fifth Amendment.
From Barron's ● Aug. 6, 2026
Left to drift, it ossifies into a maze navigable only by the already-established.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
Big-time players will likely have an array of financial experts to help them navigate the tax maze, Fagan said.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 17, 2026
The maze is shaped like a plus sign and contains two open arms and two enclosed arms.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 17, 2026
On Sunday afternoon, the Brisbanes invited their neighbors over to watch me run my maze.
From "The World According to Humphrey" by Betty G. Birney
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
In Pokémon Blue, which became popular on Nintendo Game Boy devices in the late 90s, players must navigate through a series of mazes, catch Pokémon and battle so-called “gym masters” to earn badges.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 22, 2026
Cerebras inscribed the memory directly on to the wafer rather than relegating it to distant chips and chiplets in high-bandwidth memory mazes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 3, 2025
While Coffin Creek, which at times went by the name Crossroads Haunted Village, was essentially a destination populated by several independently owned and operated haunted mazes, Shireman was the head of the operation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2025
He just couldn’t see himself spending four years running rats through mazes and checking human responses to blinking lights and buzzing sounds, he told me.
From "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok
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
Anyhow, by the time they came to, Gately had mazed it through the wilderness of shacks of which Guthrie was already composed, and Bill Reeves had appeared on the scene.
From Taking Chances by Clarence L. Cullen
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
In the meane time take order for the fight, 2260 Drums let your fearefull mazing thunder playe.
From The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge by Anonymous
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
Fully five miles it soared toward space, its fantastic angles and arcs and cubes and pyramids mazing in the dimensions of a totally alien geometry.
From Raiders of the Universes by Donald A. Wandrei
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.
