Word.ws English Dictionary

muddy the waters

muddy the waters verb: to make something unclear and difficult to understand.

Verb

muddy the waters (third-person singular simple present muddies the waters, present participle muddying the waters, simple past and past participle muddied the waters)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To make something unclear and difficult to understand.
    • He insisted that the Basque separatist group Eta remained the main line of investigation, and suggested the tape may have been an attempt to muddy the waters.2004 March 12, Giles Tremlett, “The clues that point towards al-Qaida”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
    • “Thank you for having me on,” Banks began. The one statement he made that sounded genuinely credible. It’s not often that someone accused of electoral fraud gets to muddy the waters on live television ahead of a possible criminal investigation.2018 November 4, John Crace, “Marr founders on the Rocks of Arron Banks's muddy waters”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

muddy the waters meaning in Tamil

muddy the waters in Tamil

குட்டையைக் குழப்பு, குழப்பத்தை ஏற்படுத்து

Forms of muddy the waters

third-person singular presentmuddies the waters
present participlemuddying the waters
past participlemuddied the waters
pastmuddied the waters
alternative formmuddy the water

Questions about muddy the waters

What does muddy the waters mean?
Muddy the waters means to make something unclear and difficult to understand.
What is muddy the waters in Tamil?
Muddy the waters in Tamil is குட்டையைக் குழப்பு, குழப்பத்தை ஏற்படுத்து. See Muddy the waters meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is muddy the waters?
Muddy the waters is a verb.
What is the past tense of muddy the waters?
The past tense of muddy the waters is muddied the waters.

Words near muddy the waters in the dictionary

  1. Muddock
  2. muddwelling
  3. muddy
  4. Muddy Mississippi
  5. muddy the water
  6. muddy the waters
  7. muddy up
  8. Muddy York
  9. muddying
  10. muddying the water
  11. muddying the waters

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: muddy the waters (page history and authors); muddy the waters (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “muddy the waters.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/muddy_the_waters. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.