The 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.
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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: […]1606, Charles Steuens [i.e., Charles Estienne]; John Liebault [i.e., Jean Liébault], “The Seating and Situating of the Countrie Farme, with Other His Appurtinances”, in Richard Surflet, transl., Maison Rustique, or The Countrey Farme: […], London: […] Arnold Hatfield for Iohn Norton and Iohn Bill, →OCLC, book I, page 7:
[T]he augure, […] is a ſharpe inſtrument of yron made thinne vvith many ſharpe teeth, and ſo ſtriken into holes or muddie banks, vvhere they vvill many times catch a verie great aboundance of Eeles: […]1616, Charles Steuens [i.e., Charles Estienne]; John Liebault [i.e., Jean Liébault]; Gervase Markham, “Of the Sorts of Fishes wherewith Pooles, Ponds, and Ditches, are to be Furnished”, in Richard Surflet, transl., Maison Rustique, or, The Countrey Farme. […], new edition, London: […] Adam Jslip for John Bill, →OCLC, book IV (That There are Two Sorts of Medowes), page 508:
All theſe Cocytus bounds vvith ſqualid Reeds, / VVith Muddy Ditches, and vvith deadly VVeeds: […]1697, Virgil, “The Fourth Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 143, lines 686–687:
A long Canal the muddy Fenn divides, / And vvith a clear unſully'd Current glides; […]1705, J[oseph] Addison, “From Rome to Naples”, in Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 188:
2
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.1610, Gervase Markham, “Of the Sixe Thing Not Naturall, How They Profit, and How They Hurt”, in Markhams Maister-peece. Or, What doth a Horse-man Lacke. Containing All Possible Knowledge whatsoeuer which doth Belong to any Smith, Farrier, or Horse-leech, Touching the Curing of All Manner of Diseases or Sorrances in Horses; […], London: […] Nicholas Okes, and are to be sold by Arthur Iohnson, […], →OCLC, 1st book (Containing All Cures Physicall, […]), page 21:
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[T]he moſt generous VVines are the moſt muddy, before they are fine.a. 1662 (date written), Thomas Fuller, “Northampton-shire”, in The History of the Worthies of England, London: […] J[ohn] G[rismond,] W[illiam] L[eybourne] and W[illiam] G[odbid], published 1662, →OCLC, page 291:
[I]n Italy one ſeldom ſees a River that is extreamly bright and limpid, moſt of 'em falling dovvn from the Mountains, that make their VVaters very troubled and muddy, […]1705, J[oseph] Addison, “Pavia, Milan, &c.”, in Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 26:
3
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.c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene vii], page 276, column 2:
Archaic Of 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, / Through muddy weeds, the shallow, sullen sea.1818 (date written), Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Mazenghi”, in Mary W[ollstonecraft] Shelley, editor, Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley, London: […] [C. H. Reynell] for John and Henry L[eigh] Hunt, […], published 1824, →OCLC, stanza 9, page 259:
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 vvhilſt this muddy veſture of decay [i.e., the human body] / Doth groſſely cloſe in it, vve cannot heare it.c. 1596–1598 (date written), W[illiam] Shakespeare, The Excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. […] (First Quarto), [London]: […] J[ames] Roberts [for Thomas Heyes], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
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.1599, W. Kinsayder or Theriomastix [pseudonyms; John Marston], “Fronti nulla fides”, in The Scourge of Villanie. […], London: […] I[ames] R[oberts], →OCLC; republished as G[eorge] B[agshawe] Harrison, editor, The Scourge of Villanie (The Bodley Head Quartos; 13), London: John Lane, The Bodley Head […]; New York, N.Y.: E[dward] P[ayson] Dutton & Company, 1925, →OCLC, page 16:
To vvhat, my loue, ſhall I compare thine eyne? / Chriſtall is muddy.c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame. […] (First Quarto), London: […] [Richard Bradock] for Thomas Fisher, […], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
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 asquint.1841, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Essay IV. Spiritual Laws.”, in Essays, Boston, Mass.: James Munroe and Company, →OCLC, page 128:
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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).2008 December, “Assessment, Grading, and Cheating”, in Classroom Management (Idea Book Series; Information Collection and Exchange Publication; no. M0088), Washington, D.C.: Office of Overseas Programming and Training Support, Information Collection and Exchange, Peace Corps, published March 2009, →OCLC, page 99:
[P]hilosophers often press thought experiments into service as a way of addressing a given philosophical problem by analogy: […] Thomson thinks the question of whether we are permitted to unplug ourselves from an unconscious violinist to whom we have been unwittingly attached admits of a fairly clear answer, and wants to bring that clarity to the muddier issue of abortion.2019, David Egan, “Wittgenstein’s Pursuit of Authenticity in Philosophy”, in The Pursuit of an Authentic Philosophy: Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and the Everyday, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, part III (The Pursuit of an Authentic Philosophy), page 222:
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Figuratively Of a colour: not bright: dirty, dull.
Muddy colors are often the result of mixing complementary colors—those opposite each other on the color wheel.2026, Pamela K. Schultz, “Primary Shift”, in Spin Off, volume L, number 1, page 27:
Figuratively Of sound (especially during performance, recording, or playback): indistinct, muffled.
The television picture is decent, but the sound is muddy.
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Figuratively Of 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?c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 280, column 1:
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 Latine deriued from it muſt needs be muddie.1611, [Miles Smith], “The Translators to the Reader”, in The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC:
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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 has given them a clear understanding of things.1688, John Bunyan, “ The Water of Life; or, A Discourse Showing the Richness and Glory of the Grace and Spirit of the Gospel, as Set Forth in Scripture by this Term, ‘the Water of Life’”, in Henry Stebbing, editor, The Entire Works of John Bunyan, […], volume III, London: James S[prent] Virtue, […], published 1862, →OCLC, page 216, column 2:
On the ſcheme of this barbarous philoſophy, vvhich is the offſpring of cold hearts and muddy underſtandings, […] lavvs are to be ſupported only by their ovvn terrors, and by the concern, vvhich each individual may find in them, from his ovvn private ſpeculations, or can ſpare to them from his ovvn private intereſts.1790 November, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. […], London: […] J[ames] Dodsley, […], →OCLC, page 115:
[S]oldiers acquire a little ſuperficial knowledge, ſnatched from the muddy current of converſation, and, from continually mixing with ſociety, they gain, what is termed a knowledge of the world; […]1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, “The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed”, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: […] Peter Edes for Thomas and Andrews, […], published 1792, →OCLC, page 46:
Wretched as Voltaire's sneers and puns are, I think there is something more manly and earnest even in them, than in the present muddy French transcendentalism.1840, M. A. Titmarsh [pseudonym; William Makepeace Thackeray], “Madame [George] Sand and the New Apocalypse”, in The Paris Sketch Book, volume II, London: John Macrone, […], →OCLC, page 105:
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.1791, Oliver Goldsmith, “Of Winds, Irregular and Regular”, in An History of the Earth, and Animated Nature. […], new edition, volume I, London: […] F[rancis] Wingrave, successor to Mr. [John] Nourse, […], →OCLC, page 333:
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Figuratively Originally, 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; betvvixt the pure vvaters that flovv from the holy Spirit, and the muddy and tumultuous ſuggeſtions of the Fleſh.1653, Henry More, “Conjectura Cabbalistica. Or, A Conjectural Essay of Interpreting the Mind of Moses, in the Three First Chapters of Genesis, According to a Threefold Cabbala: Viz. Literal, Philosophical, Mystical, or, Divinely Moral. The Moral Cabbala. Chapter I.”, in A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr Henry More […], London: […] James Flesher for William Morden, […], published 1662, →OCLC, , paragraph 6, page 102:
Business is business; and your business, let me remind you, is too muddy for such airs.1878 June–October, Robert Louis Stevenson, “[The Rajah’s Diamond.] Story of the House with the Green Blinds.”, in New Arabian Nights […], volume I, London: Chatto & Windus, […], published 1882, →OCLC, page 215:
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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 that it ever should be.1928, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter XVIII, in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, [Germany?]: Privately printed, →OCLC, page 284:
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Archaic, Figuratively Of a person or their facial expression: angry, sad, or sulky.
[N]ot that he gets drunk, for he is a very pious man, but he is always muddy.1791, James Boswell, quoting Samuel Johnson, “[1776]”, in James Boswell, editor, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. […], volume II, London: […] Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly, […], →OCLC, page 33:
The 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”))
To 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, and drove them out of the pool.1908, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, “Twelfth Chapter”, in A Room with a View, London: Edward Arnold, →OCLC, part II, page 200:
2
To 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 enemy, inſtead of boldly facing it in the clear ſtream.1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, “Duty to Parents”, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: […] Peter Edes for Thomas and Andrews, […], published 1792, →OCLC, page 269:
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; […]1855 January 5, Anthony Trollope, “Dr. Grantly Visits the Hospital”, in The Warden, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC, page 82:
3
Figuratively To 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 remoue: the people muddied, / Thicke and vnvvholſome in their thoughts, […]c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene v], page 273, column 2:
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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, […]1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, “Of the Pernicious Effects which Arise from the Unnatural Distinctions Established in Society”, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: […] Peter Edes for Thomas and Andrews, […], published 1792, →OCLC, page 255:
Habitual topers, I believe, acquire the power of soaking themselves with a quantity of liquor which does little more than muddy those intellects, that, in their sober state, are none of the clearest; […]1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter XII, in Rob Roy. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 278:
4
Figuratively To damage (a person or their reputation); to sully, to tarnish.
5
Figuratively To 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.
6
Figuratively To 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.2014 July 1, Steve Rose, “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: a primate scream – first look review”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 Nov 2022:
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 that exchanges of blows that should have been viscerally thrilling were often muddied, good for capturing the mood but not much fun to watch.2019 April 28, Alex McLevy, “Game Of Thrones Suffers the Fog of War in the Battle against the Dead (Newbies)”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 31 May 2021:
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Figuratively To make (something) impure; to contaminate.
8
Figuratively, Obsolete To 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.c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii], page 252, column 2:
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Also, Figuratively Sometimes followed by up: to become covered or splashed with mud; to become dirty or soiled.
10
Of water or some other liquid: to become cloudy or turbid.
Malt before hops, the world over, or the beer muddies.1846, Walter Savage Landor, “Citation and Examination of William Shakespeare, Euseby Treen, Joseph Carnaby, and Silas Gough, Clerk, before the Worshipful Sir Thomas Lucy, Knight, Touching Deer-stealing on the 19th Day of September, in the Year of Grace 1582”, in The Works of Walter Savage Landor. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 276, column 1: