muddlesome

M3U1D2D2L1E1S1O1M3E1

adjective

Characterised or marked by muddling; confusing, lacking in order; tending to muddle.

Scrabble 16

Meanings

adjectivemuddlesome (comparative more muddlesome, superlative most muddlesome)

comparative more muddlesome · superlative most muddlesome

  1. Characterised or marked by muddling; confusing, lacking in order; tending to muddle.

    Without this, all social concern will be muddlesome meddling, and all work for the future will be planned disaster.

    1966, Alan Watts, chapter 5, in The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, New York: Vintage, published 1989, page 116
    2 more examples

    1945, Lawrence Wolfe, The Reilly Plan: A New Way of Life, London: Nicholson & Watson, cited by George Orwell in a review published in Tribune, 25 January, 1946, in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (eds.), The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume IV, London: Secker & Warburg, 1968, p. 91, […] the abolition of the muddlesome, costly and wasteful apparatus of the kitchen

    Lucy peered at the pictures with her face close to the page, and though they had seemed crowded and muddlesome before, she found she could now see them quite clearly.

    1952, C. S. Lewis, chapter 10, in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Collins, published 1998

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

muddlesome. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/muddlesome

MLA

“muddlesome.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/muddlesome. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “muddlesome,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/muddlesome.

Source: muddlesome on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.