muddling

Verb

muddle (third-person singular simple present muddles, present participle muddling, simple past and past participle muddled)

1. To mix together, to mix up; to confuse.
   • Young children tend to muddle their words.
2. To mash slightly for use in a cocktail.
   • He muddled the mint sprigs in the bottom of the glass.
3. To dabble in mud.
   • Young ducklings foster'd by a hen;
     But, when let out, they run and muddlec. 1721-1722, Jonathan Swift, The Progress of Marriage
4. To make turbid or muddy.
   • He did ill to Muddle the Water.1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC
5. To think and act in a confused, aimless way.
6. To cloud or stupefy; to render stupid with liquor; to intoxicate partially.
   • 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.1692, Richard Bentley, [A Confutation of Atheism] (please specify the sermon), London: [Thomas Parkhurst; Henry Mortlock], published 1692–1693

See all 11 meanings of muddle