muddy
Americanadjective
-
muddier,
comparative
-
muddiest
superlative
-
abounding in or covered with mud.
-
not clear or pure.
muddy colors.
-
cloudy with sediment.
muddy coffee.
-
dull, as the complexion.
-
not clear mentally.
-
obscure or vague, as thought, expression, or literary style.
-
Horse Racing. denoting the condition of a track after a heavy, continuous rainfall has ceased and been completely absorbed into the surface, leaving it the consistency of thick mud.
verb (used with object)
-
muddies,
present (3rd person singular)
-
muddied,
past participle, past
-
muddying
present participle
-
to make muddy; soil with mud.
-
to make turbid.
-
to cause to be confused or obscure.
verb (used without object)
-
muddies,
present (3rd person singular)
-
muddied,
past participle, past
-
muddying
present participle
adjective
-
covered or filled with mud
-
not clear or bright
muddy colours
-
cloudy
a muddy liquid
-
(esp of thoughts) confused or vague
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
muddysimple
-
muddiessimple
-
have muddiedperfect
-
has muddiedperfect
-
am muddyingprogressive
-
are muddyingprogressive
-
is muddyingprogressive
-
have been muddyingperfect progressive
-
has been muddyingperfect progressive
Past
-
muddiedsimple
-
had muddiedperfect
-
was muddyingprogressive
-
were muddyingprogressive
-
had been muddyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of muddy
First recorded in 1375–1425, muddy is from the late Middle English word muddi. See mud, -y 1
Explanation
Muddy is a verb that means to make dirty with mud. You might muddy up your mom's white shag rug if you don't take off your dirty hiking boots before you walk inside. The meaning of muddy is easy to remember: just look at the root word mud and think about smearing it on something. Muddy is also an adjective that describes something that's dirty and messy. When you're a child, you often end up looking muddy after playing outside, because you've been splashing in puddles and playing in the leaves. Muddy can also describe soil that's waterlogged, like your vegetable garden after a big rainstorm.
Vocabulary lists containing muddy
Can You Dig It? Words for Dirt and Soil
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Common Five-letter Words for Wordle, List 3
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Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"
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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:
During natural disasters, he waded into muddy floodwaters to help people who lost their homes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 11, 2026
With typical care, Karen tells me to watch out for the poison ivy as we walk along a muddy track.
From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2026
Ayer pushes the emotional and physical extremes and it feels like a dirge: a forced march through the muddy Alaskan wilderness with plenty of body horror on top.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2026
The rock-ice avalanche crashed thousands of feet into the valley below, where it was pulverized into a muddy debris-laden flood.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026
She stood and looked around for a minute, and I held my breath in the shadow behind the barn, and was glad I was wearing a brown shirt and muddy jeans.
From "Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer" by Kelly Jones
At that point, the legal questions get even muddier.
From Slate ● Jul. 23, 2025
In a statement issued through Cumbria Police, Mr and Mrs Cartmell said "Jay loved being outdoors" and "the muddier he could get the better".
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2024
That meant great sight lines for more people in the arena, but muddier sound as a result.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 12, 2024
Yet as the smoke cleared and the fallout from the launch became apparent, the implications—for Starship itself and SpaceX’s southern Texas Starbase launch site—grew muddier.
From Scientific American ● May 4, 2023
Everything’s getting muddier and it’s making us slow down.
From "The Knife of Never Letting Go" by Patrick Ness
This is likely due to the high silt content of the riverbed; the Yellow River—the muddiest in the world—is named for the heavy loads of silt it carries.
From Science Magazine ● Jun. 10, 2022
“It’s a high road and, as all the muddiest are, both unassailable pure and also solidly earthed.”
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 27, 2021
On the second lap, I tripped and fell in a woodsy area coating myself with the muddiest mud.
From Golf Digest ● Sep. 11, 2019
Freedman's people are the ones with the muddiest shoes and wettest clothes, the people with the most to gain and most to lose.
From Time ● Oct. 26, 2017
The more rugged vehicles pulled on in to the muddiest sections, and the people inside would scatter to the bulldozers and backhoes that had been left outside overnight.
From "Among the Hidden" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
He has argued that narrating the outlook locks officials into their forecasts and muddies what markets can tell them about the economy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 27, 2026
Instead, it muddies the waters and pretends to be deep.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2026
There's another reason that muddies the waters and helps explain why cutting carbon became the prime focus – it was investable.
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
“Old inventory muddies the income statement. Cohort performance tells you that this new Opendoor 2.0 machine works.”
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 20, 2026
"Break for it, before anybody else gets there and muddies the water."
From Si Klegg, Book 6 (of 6) Si And Shorty, With Their Boy Recruits, Enter On The Atlanta Campaign by John McElroy
But mixed after-hours releases from Meta and Tesla muddied the waters again for investors.
From Barron's ● Oct. 22, 2026
It was interesting to me because even his message was a little bit muddied.
From Slate ● Oct. 6, 2026
As a minor complaint, the book’s discussion of what makes something intelligent is scant and muddied.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
The effects of the climate cycle on wildfires are muddied by countless other weather and ecological factors.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026
But his worrying muddied his concentration to the point where he couldn’t even remember the melody.
From "Healer of the Water Monster" by Brian Young
The standard helps tasters judge the leaves without differences in brewing muddying up the comparison.
From Slate ● Nov. 8, 2026
The quiet period runs through the day after the meeting ends—in this case, at the end of Thursday—to keep individual officials from muddying the committee’s message immediately after a decision.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
Yet the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, personal consumption expenditures, rose 0.4% in December from the prior month and 3% from a year earlier, muddying the case for rate cuts.
From Barron's ● Feb. 20, 2026
It allows both parties to get the best price they believe they can afford or believe is fair without muddying the waters with personal obligations and emotional leverage.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 19, 2026
They rushed over the path to the bank of the river and skidded down the last yards of incline, muddying their shoes.
From "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Pérez
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