muddled

[muhd-ld]

adjective

1. mixed up, confused, or disordered.

   The rejection is based on faulty underlying assumptions and muddled thinking.

2. muddy, clouded, or obscured; murky.

   After a long winter season, your pool is most likely a tub of muddled water with foliage and twigs floating about.

3. (of an ingredient) mixed, crushed, or mashed into a drink, especially with a muddler.

   The freshly muddled kiwi adds an unexpected flavor to this handmade cocktail.

verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of muddle.

Other Word Forms

• unmuddled adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of muddled¹

muddle ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. )

Example Sentences

Californians watched as the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, another D.C. power player from San Francisco, teetered into frailty, muddled through her final chapter in Washington and then died in office at 90 in 2023.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The slang terms get muddled as the topic turns to vegetables, a fun bit of comical confusion that the writers seemed afraid to linger on.

Read more on Salon

Instead, the club are left muddled, lacking a clear identify and direction, and looking for a third manager of the season two months into a campaign which had promised so much.

Read more on BBC

The writing is muddled at times by a certain narrative slippage wherein one cannot tell whether the biting observations about clueless classmates and pretentious doctors come from Alice or Mr. deBoer.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The Electric Nebraska disc is powerful and fascinating, but also slightly disappointing when the original songs’ emotional meaning becomes a little muddled.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• blurred www.thesaurus.com
• chaotic 
• convoluted 
• disorganized 
• jumbled www.thesaurus.com
• messy