MUDDYING Synonyms: 166 Similar and Opposite Words

muddying

verb

Definition of muddying next

present participle of muddy

as in confusing

to throw into a state of mental uncertainty my mind had been thoroughly muddied by the long hours of exacting work

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

as in obfuscating

to make (something) unclear to the understanding that argument is irrelevant and will just muddy the issue we're trying to resolve

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

as in staining

to make dirty forgot to take off our shoes and accidentally muddied the kitchen floor

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of muddying Assets worth at least $1 million — which includes the vast majority of real estate in San Francisco — are also grouped together, further muddying the picture. —

Alyce McFadden, San Francisco Chronicle, 2 Apr. 2026 Also muddying the outlook for an end to the crisis is uncertainty about what the United States is trying to achieve. —

Paul Wiseman, Los Angeles Times, 13 Mar. 2026 Also muddying the outlook for an end to the crisis is uncertainty about what the United States is trying to achieve. —

Paul Wiseman, Chicago Tribune, 10 Mar. 2026 Also muddying the outlook for an end to the crisis is uncertainty about what the United States is trying to achieve. —

ABC News, 9 Mar. 2026 As the decades passed, their experiments escalated into increasingly absurd inquiries, muddying the boundaries between subjective and objective reality. —

Shannon Taggart, Artforum, 1 Feb. 2026 This may be because the nucleus accumbens, the other reward region that some participants learned to ramp up, didn’t have the same connection to immune response, muddying the results. —

Allison Parshall, Scientific American, 19 Jan. 2026 But seen another way, this release is also optimally confusing, muddying the waters with as-yet-unverified information that’s being disseminated via individual screenshots on social media, making the whole thing easier to dismiss. —

Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 23 Dec. 2025 This will prevent muddying the pieces if any color bleeding occurs while washing. —

Mary Catherine McAnnally Scott, Southern Living, 19 Dec. 2025

Recent Examples of Synonyms for muddying

Verb

But Neptune also blurs lines, which is why its influence can feel mysterious or even confusing at times.

— Valerie Mesa, PEOPLE, 10 Apr. 2026
That’s not all that’s confusing across the first season.

— Ben Travers, IndieWire, 9 Apr. 2026