▪ I. muddle, n.
(ˈmʌd(ə)l)
[f. muddle v.]
1. A muddled condition; confusion, disorder; mental confusion, bewilderment. Also, a result of muddling, a bungle, ‘mess’. Esp. in phr. in a muddle. to make a muddle of: to bungle.
| 1818 Todd, Muddle, a confused or turbid state: a vulgar expression. 1833 J. Constable Let. 14 Jan. in Corr. (1965) III. 90, I shall be glad when these great pictures are out of doors—but still it's a good thing to be in a muddle. 1852 Dickens Bleak Ho. v, We both grub on in a muddle. 1857 Hughes Tom Brown Pref. (1871) 18 A pretty muddle we should have been in had he done so. 1871 Smiles Charac. ii. (1876) 54 Work can only be got through by method. Muddle flies before it. 1884 Sat. Rev. 7 June 732/1 The present Government has made an immortal muddle of the whole business. 1884 A. Baird Egypt. Muddle 12 The Egyptian muddle—for I can call it nothing else— into which we have been dragged by the Government. |
2. A confused assemblage.
| 1865 Dickens Mut. Fr. i. vii, One dark shop-window with a tallow candle dimly burning in it, and surrounded by a muddle of objects. 1891 Kipling Light that Failed xiii. (1900) 222 A scarred, formless muddle of paint. |
3. U.S. ‘A kind of chowder; a pottle made with crackers’ (Cent. Dict. 1890).
4. a. Comb., chiefly parasynthetic (after muddle-headed a.) with the sense ‘muddled’, as muddle-brained, muddle-minded, muddle-thoughted adjs.; muddle-pate = muddle-head. Also muddle-room rare—1, a room set apart for untidy work.
| 1895 Morris in Mackail Life (1899) II. 310 Coleridge was a *muddle-brained metaphysician. |
| 1862 H. Marryat Year in Sweden II. 8 The house keeper—a *muddle-minded woman. |
| a 1849 Poe R. H. Horne Wks. 1864 III. 427 The cant of the *muddlepates who dishonor a profound..philosophy by styling themselves transcendentalists. |
| 1886 Mrs. E. Lynn Linton Paston Carew v, A..room on the ground-floor, which the Clinton girls had made their ‘*muddle-room’. |
| 1905 E. Phillpotts Secret Woman iii. v. 250 What a *muddle-thoughted man you be—all in a maze! |
¶ b. Taken as adj. = ‘muddled’.
| 1798 J. Baillie Tryal ii. i, Damn your muddle pate! |
▪ II. muddle, v.
(ˈmʌd(ə)l)
Also (? 6,) 7 mudle.
[f. mud n.1 or v.1: see -le. Cf. MDu. moddelen, frequentative of modden to dabble in mud.]
† 1. trans. ? To throw into the mud, to knock down. Obs. rare—1. [Possibly some misreading.]
| a 1550 Christis Kirke Gr. 129 (Bann. MS.), He mudlet thame doun lyk ony myss. |
2. a. intr. To bathe or wallow in mud or muddy water. Also, ‘to rout with the bill, as geese and ducks do’ (Phillips, ed. Kersey 1706). Obs. exc. arch.
| 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts 714 Paulus Venetus saith, that..Vnicornes muddle in the durt like Swine. 1623 Lisle ælfric on O. & N. Test. To Rdr. 20 As duckes who delight euer to leaue the cleere spring, and muddle in waters of their owne fouling. 1727 Bradley Fam. Dict. s.v. Approaching, They will quit the Middle of the Stream, and muddle along the Sides. a 1745 Swift Dick's Variety 15 He never muddles in the Dirt Nor scowers the Street without a Shirt. 1845 Judd Margaret ii. iii, The tree..easier than a duck, muddles for nourishment with its roots. |
b. To grub in the soil; to do dirty work; † fig. to ‘grub’ among records. rare.
| 1756 Greville Maxims 221 His summum bonum is muddling in parchments, in the offals of dulness and tastlessness. 1822 Galt Sir A. Wylie xxxv, I'll..muddle about the root o' this affair till I get at it. 1831 Carlyle Sart. Res. iii. ix, Dyers, washers and wringers that puddle and muddle in their dark recesses. |
3. a. trans. To make muddy; to render (liquor) turbid by stirring up the sediment. Now rare.
| 1676 Marvell Mr. Smirke I iv, Where they mudled the Water and Fished after. 1692 R. L'Estrange Fables iii. 2 Villain (says he) how dare you lye muddling the Water that I'm a drinking? 1831 Brewster Nat. Magic xi. (1833) 268 It muddled the water which it drank with its bill. 1885 Fairbairn Cath. Rom. & Anglican (1899) ii. ii. 61 The churches that do nothing to reach and purify the source only help to muddle the stream. |
b. transf. To destroy the clearness of (colours). Also † to muddle over: to variegate or mottle.
In quot. 1596, the words seem to be comic perversions of Du. terms of painting; but the passage is obscure.
| 1596 Nashe Saffron Walden F 4, I have..ouzled, gidumbled, muddled, and drizled it [sc. the ‘picture’ of G. Harvey] so finely, that [etc.]. 1647 Trapp Comm. Mark ii. 12 He cares not to gild gold, or muddle over a topaz. 1807 Opie in Lect. Paint. iv. (1848) 320 Colours..little muddled by vehicles, and subsequent attempts to mend the first touches. 1863 E. V. Neale Anal. Th. & Nat. 259 The transparent freshness of water-color drawings, when the washes are not muddled. |
c. ? U.S. ‘To mix; stir: as, to muddle chocolate or drinks’ (Cent. Dict. 1890). Cf. muddler 2.
4. a. To confuse, bewilder, esp. with drink. Also, to render (speech) confused or indistinct.
| 1687 Sedley Bellamira v. i. Wks. 1778 II. 178 This drinking does so muddle one's complexion and take off one's mettle. 1692 Bentley Boyle Lect. ii. 70 Their old Master seems to have had his Brains so muddled. 1718 Lady M. W. Montagu Let. to Mrs. Thistlethwayte 25 Sept., A head muddled with spleen. 1736 Ainsworth Lat. Dict., To muddle, or intoxicate with drinking, Inebrio. 1819 Shelley Peter Bell 3rd iv. xvi, A toad-like lump of limb and feature, With mind, and heart, and fancy muddled. 1822–34 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) I. 691 The stupor is increased and the speech muddled. 1873 Holland A. Bonnic. xvi, Mullens ran on in this way, muddled by his unexpected good fortune and his greed. 1886 G. Allen Maimie's Sake xvii, The liquor was muddling her. |
b. intr. ‘To become confused, esp. from drink’ (Cent. Dict. 1890). † to muddle on (see quot.).
| a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, To Muddle on, tho' so [i.e. ‘half drunk’], yet to Drink on. |
5. a. trans. To mix up blunderingly or sophistically, to confuse together. Also with up.
| 1836 S. R. Maitland Remarks, etc. 57 To muddle the Valdesii..with the Cathari. 1864 J. H. Newman Apol. App. 43 My Critic has muddled it together in a most extraordinary manner. 1886 Spurgeon Treas. Dav. cxxix. 3 A writer says the metaphor is muddled. 1900 Westm. Gaz. 22 Mar. 3/2 It is childish nonsense to muddle good and bad schools together and strike an average. 1944 R. Lehmann Ballad & Source 104 Sometimes she doesn't remember our names and muddles us up. |
b. To bungle, mismanage (an affair); also, to render (accounts) unintelligible by want of method.
| 1885 Nat. Rev. July 675 It was only when all services had been muddled, and when the whole Governmental machinery had come to a standstill, that Nubar Pasha put down his foot. 1905 Chesterton Heretics 18 Now our affairs are hopelessly muddled by strong silent men. |
6. a. intr. To busy oneself in a confused, unmethodical, and ineffective manner. Also with at.
| [1806–7, 1827: ? Implied in muddling ppl. a.] 1850 W. Irving Goldsmith 87 He meddled or rather muddled with literature. 1882 M. E. Braddon Mt. Royal i, We were muddling hopelessly in an endeavour to make good sensible rules. 1895 G. B. Shaw Let. 1 Mar. (1965) 491, I should muddle at it until I got it right. 1906 Outlook 26 May 710/2 He spends much of his time..in muddling with his flowers and vegetables. |
b. With various advs. to muddle about: to ‘potter’ about, busy oneself with various matters in an unmethodical way. to muddle along = to muddle on: to ‘get along’ in a haphazard way, to escape absolute failure though trusting to chance and makeshift expedients. to muddle through: to blunder through, to succeed in one's object in spite of one's lack of skill and foresight.
| 1701 Norris Ideal World i. viii. 437 Mudling on in the little affairs of a lower and more innocent, perhaps, but not less ingaged life. 1802 H. Martin Helen of Glenross II. 226 We never could muddle on at Invermay. c 1864 Bright in M{supc}Carthy's Remin. (1899) I. 85 My opinion is that the Northern States will manage somehow to muddle through. 1879 M{supc}Carthy Own Times II. xx. 98 To ask the ministers who had resigned to resume their places and muddle on as they best could. 1888 Mrs. H. Ward R. Elsmere xviii. 236, I suppose you muddle about among the poor like other people. 1899 J. E. Taylor Let. 22 Dec. in D. Ayerst Guardian (1971) xviii. 245, I suppose we shall muddle along and suffer the natural results. 1901 Scotsman 28 Feb. 8/2 They would muddle on in the old slipshod way of trusting to chance. 1910 Belloc Verses 86 A gentleman who cannot jest Remarked that we should muddle through. 1931 Economist 21 Mar. 599/1 It reveals us as indolent, complacent, mentally lazy, hide-bound by tradition, content to ‘muddle along’, neglectful of self⁓help. 1940 L. MacNeice Poems 1925–40 287 Muddling through and glad to have no answer. 1948 D. B. Hawkins in R. O'Sullivan King's Good Servant viii. 92 You can muddle through only with the aid of sound instincts; without them you make the muddle but you do not get through. 1972 Village Voice (N.Y.) 1 June 9/5 In the absence of a national program, America muddles through to produce its energy. |
7. trans. with away. To waste, get rid of (money, time, etc.) without clearly knowing how.
| 1827 Scott Jrnl. 10 Dec., I muddled away the evening over my Sheriff-Court processes. 1853 Lytton My Novel ii. v, The elder son..had muddled and sotted away much of his share in the Leslie property. |