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:
It looked muddy, which might indicate real trouble — erosion in the foundation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
You “absolutely need a mudroom,” in the Northeast, since people walk in with snow and rain on their boots and need a place to drop off “sporty, sweaty, muddy, rainy, snowy” stuff.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 1, 2026
As the pre-war avant-garde’s celebration of image-breaking, violent spectacle and weird hybridizing became muddy reality in the field, the amateurs outstripped the professionals.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
Fast-flowing muddy water burst the banks of 40 rivers and waterways in Guangxi, damaging nearly 13,000 acres of agricultural land, state media reported.
From Barron's ● Jul. 8, 2026
I kicked my muddy sneakers off by Gran’s front door.
From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas
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
The muddy trail turned into a wider, even muddier trail, with a scattering of trading stores on either side.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
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
“Old inventory muddies the income statement. Cohort performance tells you that this new Opendoor 2.0 machine works.”
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 20, 2026
The first pull on Haaland muddies the waters.
From BBC ● Feb. 8, 2026
It’s a simple story, but “Scarlet,” an anime feature from Japan, both complicates and muddies the quest.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 11, 2025
"Misuse of the terminology in the media muddies the waters."
From Salon ● May 20, 2024
It is raining mightily; strong, straight, earnest rain, that harshly lashes the meek earth, that sends angry runlets down the gravel walks, that muddies the gold goblets of the closed crocuses.
From Nancy by Rhoda Broughton
This muddied the waters for the company’s coming IPO that aims to raise tens of billions of dollars to fund his multiplanetary goals.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 31, 2026
This is where it starts to get muddied.
From Slate ● Apr. 30, 2026
Over the weekend Haseeb Hameed and Dom Sibley, two openers from England's past eyeing a recall, also made centuries which muddied the selection waters further.
From BBC ● Apr. 28, 2026
For other companies, the uncertainty around when the war ends and what the Middle East looks like afterward has muddied forecasts.
From Barron's ● Apr. 21, 2026
I became conscious, at first dimly, and then later on with increasing clarity and conviction, of a vast, muddied pool of human life in America.
From "Native Son" by Richard Wright
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
This could "balance out this superficial disadvantage" by muddying the threat level, says Masterson.
From BBC ● May 14, 2025
How can you avoid muddying it up when you put it into words?
From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner
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.
