murky

Adjective

murky (comparative murkier, superlative murkiest)

1. Hard to see through, as a fog or mist.
   • The Streets of London, to be beheld in the very height of their glory, should be seen on a dark, dull, murky, winter's night, when there is just enough damp gently stealing down to make the pavement greasy without cleansing it of any of its impurities, […]1837, “Boz” [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], “The Streets by Night”, in Sketches by Boz: Illustrative of Every-day Life, and Every-day People. The Second Series, London: John Macrone, […], →OCLC, page 19
   • […] as sunbeams appear to shine with a greater effulgence of beauty when they break through the murky clouds of a winter evening than when they flood the earth from the serene splendour of a summer noon.1918, James George Frazer, Folk-Lore In The Old Testament, volume 1, page xi
2. Dark, dim, gloomy.
   • Ferdinand: As I hope / For quite dayes, faire Iſſue, and long life, / With ſuch loue, as 'tis now the murkieſt den, / The moſt opportune place, the ſtrongſt ſuggeſtion, / Our worſer Genius can, shall neuer melt / Mine honor into luſt,[…]1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...
   • The future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program got murkier Tuesday when the Texas attorney general made good on a threat to challenge it in court.2018 May 1, Tal Kopan, “7 states sue to end DACA, potentially jumbling its legal future”, in CNN, archived from the original on 02 May 2018
3. Cloudy, indistinct, obscure.
   • murky waters
   • murky territory
4. (broadly) Dishonest, shady.
   • Ever since X-Men: First Class set the series' clock back a few decades and installed Michael Fassbender's moody Magneto and James McAvoy's louche Charles Xavier as replacements for Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart's chess-playing pappies, the big-screen X-Men's central conflict—Xavier's Booker T....2016 May 23, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, “Apocalypse pits the strengths of the X-Men series against the weaknesses”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 24 May 2016