muggy
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of muggy
1725–35; mug to drizzle (noun and v.) (< Scandinavian; compare Old Norse mugga mist, drizzle) + -y 1
Explanation
Think of hot, humid, steamy weather as being so unpleasant that you feel "mugged" by it when you step outside. That's one way to remember the meaning of muggy. "It's not the heat! It's the humidity!" That's what your grandma says when she wants to complain about muggy weather. Muggy means a combination of humidity and heat that makes you sweaty and uncomfortable and long for air-conditioning. You might be cursing the cold and the snow today, but mark my words, come August and the muggy dog days of summer, you'll be nostalgic for the cold.
Vocabulary lists containing muggy
The Sweltering Words of Summer
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English Words Derived from Old Norse
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Kindred
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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.
Tuesday morning, in the muggy New Jersey heat, 13 players graduated.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 28, 2026
Still, the muggy morning session has the Bula FC squad sweating heavily at the club's base in Ba, a town on Fiji's main island in a northern coastal area known for its sugarcane farms.
From Barron's • Feb. 5, 2026
It's a warm and muggy morning on site.
From BBC • Jun. 30, 2025
An early lead shrunk across four innings on a muggy afternoon.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 14, 2025
Even though it was a muggy summer day in Washington, DC, people filled the wide, tree-lined lawn that stretched from the Capitol Building to the Washington Monument in the distance.
From "Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz
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.
