From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Muddle \Mud"dle\, verb (used with an object) [imp. & p. p. {Muddled}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Muddling}.] [From {Mud}.]
1. To make turbid, or muddy, as water. [Obs.]
He did ill to muddle the water. --L'Estrange.
2. To cloud or stupefy; to render stupid with liquor; to intoxicate partially.
Epicurus seems to have had brains so muddled and confounded, that he scarce ever kept in the right way. --Bentley.
Often drunk, always muddled. --Arbuthnot.
3. To waste or misuse, as one does who is stupid or intoxicated. [R.]
They muddle it [money] away without method or object, and without having anything to show for it. --Hazlitt.
4. To mix confusedly; to confuse; to make a mess of; as, to muddle matters; also, to perplex; to mystify. --F. W. Newman.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Muddle \Mud"dle\, verb (used without an object)
1. To dabble in mud. [Obs.] --Swift.
2. To think and act in a confused, aimless way.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Muddle \Mud"dle\, noun A state of being turbid or confused; hence, intellectual cloudiness or dullness.
We both grub on in a muddle. --Dickens.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
noun
1: a confused multitude of things [syn: {clutter}, {jumble}, {mare's nest}, {welter}, {smother}]
2: informal terms for a difficult situation; "he got into a terrible fix"; "he made a muddle of his marriage" [syn: {fix}, {hole}, {jam}, {mess}, {pickle}, {kettle of fish}]
verb
1: make into a puddle; "puddled mire" [syn: {puddle}]
2: mix up or confuse; "He muddled the issues" [syn: {addle}, {puddle}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
205 Moby Thesaurus words for "muddle": addle, addle the wits, amaze, anarchy, ataxia, baffle, ball up, bamboozle, be all thumbs, beat, becloud, bedazzle, befog, befuddle, befuddlement, bemuse, bewilder, bewilderment, blunder, blunder away, blunder into, blunder on, blunder upon, blur, blur distinctions, boggle, bollix, bollix up, botch, botchery, bother, botheration, buffalo, bug, bumble, bungle, butcher, chaos, cloud, clutter, commit a gaffe, complicate, confound, confuse, confusion, contrive, cope, daze, dazzle, deform, disarrange, disarray, disaster, discombobulate, discombobulation, discomfit, discomfiture, discompose, discomposure, disconcert, disconcertion, dishevel, disorder, disorganization, disorganize, disorient, disorientation, distort, distract, disturb, disturbance, embarrass, embarrassment, embrangle, entangle, fabulous formless darkness, faux pas, fiasco, floor, flounder, flummox, flunk, flurry, fluster, flutter, fog, fog up, foozle, foul up, foul-up, frenzy, fuddle, fuddlement, fumble, fuss, fuzz, garble, get, get along, get by, hash, hassle, haze, huddle, implicate, involve, jumble, jumble together, jungle, keep in suspense, knock galley-west, knot, license, lick, limp, litter, louse up, lumber, make do, make it, make uncertain, mar, maze, mess, mess up, miscue, mishmash, mismanage, misrule, mist, mix, mix up, mix-up, moider, morass, muck, muck up, mud, muddle through, muddlement, muddy, muff, mull, murder, murmur, muss, muss up, mutter, mystify, nonplus, obfuscate, obscure, overlook distinctions, perplex, perplexity, perturb, perturbation, pi, play havoc with, play hob with, pother, pucker, put out, puzzle, raise hell, ramify, rattle, ravel, riffle, rile, ruffle, rummage, scramble, scrape along, scrape through, screw up, screw-up, shambles, shuffle, slip, snafu, snarl, snarl up, spoil, stew, stick, stumble, stump, swallow, sweat, swivet, tangle, throw, throw into confusion, throw off, tizzy, topsy-turviness, trip, tumble, unform, unsettle, unsettlement, unshape, upset, washout
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:
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