/ˈmʌdi/
OriginThe adjective is derived from Late Middle English muddi, moddy, muddy (“covered with or full of mud, muddy”), from mud, mudde (“mud; turbid water”) + -i (suffix forming adjectives). Mud, mudde is possibly borrowed from Middle Dutch modde, and/or Middle Low German modde, mudde, from Proto-Germanic *mud-, *mudra- (“mud”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *mū-, *mew- (“moist”). The English word is analysable as mud + -y (suffix meaning ‘having the quality of’ forming adjectives). Doublet of muddle.
The verb is derived from the adjective.
cognates
* Middle Low German moddich, muddich (German Low German muddig (“muddy; mouldy”))
- Covered or splashed with, or full of, mud (“wet soil”).
“He slogged across the muddy field.”
“Take off your muddy boots before you come inside.”
“It [the cistern] muſt be firmely and cloſely paued vvith clay and mortar, and after dravvne ouer and floored vvith the ſame mortar, to the ende that the vvater be not made muddy or taſt of the earth: ”
- Of water or some other liquid: containing mud or (by extension) other sediment in suspension; cloudy, turbid.
“The previously limpid water was now muddy as a result of the struggle between the alligator and the wild boar.”
“[A]s for his vvater [i.e., the horse's urine], the more pure, it is the better, and the more muddy, thicke, and pleaſant,^([sic – meaning unpleasant?]) ſo much the more vnhealthfull.”
“[T]he moſt generous VVines are the moſt muddy, before they are fine.”
- Of or relating to mud; also, having the characteristics of mud, especially in colour or taste.
“[H]er garments, heauy vvith her drinke, / Pul'd the poore vvretch from her melodious buy^([sic – meaning lay]), / To muddy death.”
- euphemisticSoiled with feces.
- archaicOf an animal or plant: growing or living in mud.
“There is a point of strand / Near Vada's tower and town; and on one side / The treacherous marsh divides it from the land, / Shadowed by pine and ilex forests wide, / And on the other creeps eternally”
- figurativelyDirty, filthy.
“There's not the ſmalleſt orbe [in the sky] vvhich thou beholdſt, / But in his motion like an Angell ſings, / Still quiring to the young eide Cherubins; / Such harmony is in immortall ſoules, / But vvh”
“Thou sweet Arabian Panchaia, / Perfume this nastie age, smugge Lesbia / Hath stinking lunges, although a simpring grace, / A muddy inside, though a sulphul'd face.”
- figurativelyNot clear.
“To vvhat, my loue, ſhall I compare thine eyne? / Chriſtall is muddy.”
“Faces never lie, it is said. […] When a man speaks the truth in the spirit of truth, his eye is as clear as the heavens. When he has base ends, and speaks falsely, the eye is muddy and sometimes asqui”
“At the end of a class or a lecture, ask students to write for one or two minutes about the "muddiest point" of the lesson (the part of the lesson that is still not understood clearly).”
- figurativelyOf a colour: not bright: dirty, dull.
- figurativelyOf an image: blurry or dim.
- figurativelyOf light: cloudy, opaque.
- figurativelyOf sound (especially during performance, recording, or playback): indistinct, muffled.
“The television picture is decent, but the sound is muddy.”
- figurativelyOf speech, thinking, or writing: ambiguous or vague; or confused, incoherent, or mixed-up; also, poorly expressed.
“Do'ſt thinke I am ſo muddy, ſo vnſettled, / To appoint my ſelfe in this vexation?”
“Againe they vvere not out of the Hebrevv fountaine (vvee ſpeake of the Latine Tranſlations of the Old Teſtament) but out of the Greeke ſtreame, therefore the Greeke being not altogether cleare, the La”
“If their doctrines are muddy, their notions are muddy: if their doctrines are bloody, their notions and tempers are bloody: but if their doctrines are clear, so are their notions, for their doctrine h”
- figuratively, literary, poeticOf the air: not fresh; impure, polluted.
“Our ovvn muddy atmoſphere, that vvraps us round in obſcurity, though it fails to gild our proſpects vvith ſun-ſhine, or our groves vvith fruitage, nevertheleſs anſvvers the calls of industry.”
- figurativelyOriginally, morally or religiously wrong; corrupt, sinful; now, morally or legally dubious; shady, sketchy.
“[B]y the vvill of God the Heavenly Principle (though it be in it ſelf inviſible and undiſcernible) in due time becomes a Spirit of ſavoury and affectionate diſcernment betvvixt the evil and the good; ”
“Business is business; and your business, let me remind you, is too muddy for such airs.”
“I have been to the depths of the muddy lives of the Bertha Couttses of this world, and when, released from the current of gossip, I slowly rise to the surface again, I look at the daylight in wonder t”
- archaic, figurativelyOf a person or their facial expression: angry, sad, or sulky.
- figuratively, obsoleteSlightly drunk; tipsy.
“[N]ot that he gets drunk, for he is a very pious man, but he is always muddy.”
- transitiveTo cover or splash (someone or something) with mud.
“If you muddy your shoes don’t wear them inside.”
“[T]hey splashed George. He was quiet: they feared they had offended him. Then all the forces of youth burst out. He smiled, flung himself at them, splashed them, ducked them, kicked them, muddied them”
- transitiveTo make (water or some other liquid) cloudy or turbid by stirring up mud or other sediment.
“This is at the bottom a dictate of common ſenſe, or the inſtinct of ſelf-defence, peculiar to ignorant weakneſs; reſembling that inſtinct, which makes a fiſh muddy the water it ſwims in to allude its ”
“His life had hitherto been so quiet, so free from strife; […] It was so hard that the pleasant waters of his little stream should be disturbed and muddied by rough hands; […]”
- figuratively, transitiveTo confuse (a person or their thinking); to muddle.
“The discussion only muddied their understanding of the subject.”
“VVhen ſorrovves comes,^([sic – meaning come]) they come not ſingle ſpies, / But in Battalia[n]es. Firſt, her Father ſlaine, / Next your Sonne gone, and he moſt violent Author / Of his ovvne iuſt remou”
“I only recreated an imagination, fatigued by contemplating the vices and follies which all proceed from a feculent ſtream of wealth that has muddied the pure rills of natural affection, […]”
- figuratively, transitiveTo damage (a person or their reputation); to sully, to tarnish.
- figuratively, transitiveTo make (a colour) dirty, dull, or muted.
“The addition of the second batch of paint muddied the bright colours to a dull and washed look.”
- figuratively, transitiveTo make (a matter, etc.) more complicated or unclear; to make a mess of (something).
“As the humans establish tentative bonds with their evolutionary cousins, the inter-species waters start to muddy.”
“It may have been effective at conveying the confusion of the situation, but it didn't make for terribly thrilling scenes. The blurry camerawork (quite literally at times) and rapid-fire editing meant ”
- figuratively, transitiveTo make (something) impure; to contaminate.
- figuratively, obsolete, transitiveTo cause or permit (someone or something) to become stuck in mud; to mire.
“[…] I am novv ſir muddied in fortunes mood, and ſmell ſomevvhat ſtrong of her ſtrong diſpleaſure.”
- also, figuratively, intransitiveSometimes followed by up: to become covered or splashed with mud; to become dirty or soiled.
- intransitiveOf water or some other liquid: to become cloudy or turbid.
“Malt before hops, the world over, or the beer muddies.”
- figuratively, intransitiveTo become contaminated or impure.
- Australia, New-South-Wales, informalThe edible mud crab or mangrove crab (Scylla serrata).
Formsmuddier(comparative) · muddiest(superlative) · muddies(present, singular, third-person) · muddying(participle, present) · muddied(participle, past) · muddied(past) · muddies(plural)