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Muddy vs Muddle - What's the difference?

muddy | muddle |

As verbs the difference between muddy and muddle

is that muddy is to get mud on (something) while muddle is to mix together, to mix up; to confuse.

As an adjective muddy

is covered with or full of mud or wet soil.

As a noun muddle is

a mixture; a confusion; a garble.

muddy

English

Adjective

(er)
  • Covered with or full of mud or wet soil.
    • He slogged across the muddy field.
    Take off your muddy boots before you come inside.
  • With mud or other sediment brought into suspension, turbid.
    • The previously limpid water was now muddy as a result of the epic struggle.
  • Not clear; mixed up or blurry.
    • The picture is decent, but the sound is muddy.
  • Confused; stupid; incoherent; vague.
  • * Burke
    • cold hearts and muddy understandings
  • * Shakespeare
    • dost think I am so muddy , so unsettled
  • (euphemistic) Soiled with feces.

    • Verb

  • To get mud on (something).
    • If you muddy your shoes don't wear them inside.
  • To make a mess of, or create confusion with regard to; to muddle.
    • The discussion only muddied their understanding of the subject.
  • * 2014 , Steve Rose, " Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: a primate scream - first look review", The Guardian , 1 July 2014:
    • As the humans establish tentative bonds with their evolutionary cousins, the inter-species waters start to muddy .

    muddle

    English

    Verb

    (muddl)
  • To mix together, to mix up; to confuse.
    • Young children tend to muddle their words.
  • To mash slightly for use in a cocktail.
    • He muddled the mint sprigs in the bottom of the glass.
  • To dabble in mud.
    • (Jonathan Swift)
  • To make turbid or muddy.
  • * L'Estrange
    • He did ill to muddle the water.
  • To think and act in a confused, aimless way.
  • To cloud or stupefy; to render stupid with liquor; to intoxicate partially.
  • * Bentley
    • Their old master Epicurus seems to have had his brains so muddled and confounded with them, that he scarce ever kept in the right way.
  • * Arbuthnot
    • often drunk, always muddled
  • To waste or misuse, as one does who is stupid or intoxicated.
  • * Hazlitt
    • They muddle it [money] away without method or object, and without having anything to show for it.

    Derived terms

    * muddler (agent noun) * muddle along * muddle through * muddle up

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A mixture; a confusion; a garble.
    • The muddle of nervous speech he uttered did not have much meaning.

    Derived terms

    * muddle-headed