maze
Americannoun
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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:
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
Down there, a maze of tents and sleeping mats left little space to walk along the platform.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 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
Working with screenwriter Will Soodik, Parsons has gone back into that banal maze to find an uncannily mature story about loss and stagnation, about how our self-serving narratives barricade us from emotional growth.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 2026
“This part of the maze isn’t a maze at all,” Ivy said.
From "The School for Whatnots" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
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
For decades, the neighborhood had an eclectic mix of residents, including a radio announcer who built mazes for children using wooden pallets and a man who started a public market.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 14, 2026
From mazes of cubicles to plentiful lush balconies, office designers keep re-envisioning spaces to support our professional lives.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 5, 2026
Over the years of Coffin Creek’s various incarnations, a number of ancillary attractions complemented the mazes: a magic show, horror merchandise vendors and food stands.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2025
“My favorite game was this one,” he says, nodding at the TV screen, where a small square is traveling through a series of simple mazes.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
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
Cedric, with one bound, was on his horse’s back; but the stranger was slower in his movements, seeming mazed and like one in a dream with the suddenness of these turns of fortune.
From Cedric, the Forester by Marshall, Bernard Gay
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
It certainly did not look imposing—a mass of spidery tubes mazing round a bulky black box, which was, Lance guessed, some new type of generator.
From Astounding Stories, February, 1931 by Bates, Harry
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 Carlyle, Thomas
The mountain barrier ahead, looming darkly forbidding in the starlight, with its mazing hollows and woodland crowns, was incapable of inspiration at the moment.
From The Forfeit by Cullum, Ridgwell
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.
