The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Muddle \Mud"dle\, v. i.
   1. To dabble in mud. [Obs.] --Swift.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. To think and act in a confused, aimless way.
      [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Muddle \Mud"dle\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Muddled; p. pr. & vb. n.
   Muddling.] [From Mud.]
   1. To make turbid, or muddy, as water. [Obs.]
      [1913 Webster]

            He did ill to muddle the water.       --L'Estrange.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. To cloud or stupefy; to render stupid with liquor; to
      intoxicate partially.
      [1913 Webster]

            Epicurus seems to have had brains so muddled and
            confounded, that he scarce ever kept in the right
            way.                                  --Bentley.
      [1913 Webster]

            Often drunk, always muddled.          --Arbuthnot.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. To waste or misuse, as one does who is stupid or
      intoxicated. [R.]
      [1913 Webster]

            They muddle it [money] away without method or
            object, and without having anything to show for it.
                                                  --Hazlitt.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. To mix confusedly; to confuse; to make a mess of; as, to
      muddle matters; also, to perplex; to mystify. --F. W.
      Newman.
      [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Muddle \Mud"dle\, n.
   A state of being turbid or confused; hence, intellectual
   cloudiness or dullness.
   [1913 Webster]

         We both grub on in a muddle.             --Dickens.
   [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

muddle
    n 1: a confused multitude of things [syn: clutter, jumble,
         muddle, fuddle, mare's nest, welter, smother]
    2: informal terms for a difficult situation; "he got into a
       terrible fix"; "he made a muddle of his marriage" [syn:
       fix, hole, jam, mess, muddle, pickle, kettle of
       fish]
    v 1: make into a puddle; "puddled mire" [syn: muddle,
         puddle]
    2: mix up or confuse; "He muddled the issues" [syn: addle,
       muddle, puddle]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

205 Moby Thesaurus words for "muddle":
   addle, addle the wits, amaze, anarchy, ataxia, baffle, ball up,
   bamboozle, be all thumbs, beat, becloud, bedazzle, befog, befuddle,
   befuddlement, bemuse, bewilder, bewilderment, blunder,
   blunder away, blunder into, blunder on, blunder upon, blur,
   blur distinctions, boggle, bollix, bollix up, botch, botchery,
   bother, botheration, buffalo, bug, bumble, bungle, butcher, chaos,
   cloud, clutter, commit a gaffe, complicate, confound, confuse,
   confusion, contrive, cope, daze, dazzle, deform, disarrange,
   disarray, disaster, discombobulate, discombobulation, discomfit,
   discomfiture, discompose, discomposure, disconcert, disconcertion,
   dishevel, disorder, disorganization, disorganize, disorient,
   disorientation, distort, distract, disturb, disturbance, embarrass,
   embarrassment, embrangle, entangle, fabulous formless darkness,
   faux pas, fiasco, floor, flounder, flummox, flunk, flurry, fluster,
   flutter, fog, fog up, foozle, foul up, foul-up, frenzy, fuddle,
   fuddlement, fumble, fuss, fuzz, garble, get, get along, get by,
   hash, hassle, haze, huddle, implicate, involve, jumble,
   jumble together, jungle, keep in suspense, knock galley-west, knot,
   license, lick, limp, litter, louse up, lumber, make do, make it,
   make uncertain, mar, maze, mess, mess up, miscue, mishmash,
   mismanage, misrule, mist, mix, mix up, mix-up, moider, morass,
   muck, muck up, mud, muddle through, muddlement, muddy, muff, mull,
   murder, murmur, muss, muss up, mutter, mystify, nonplus, obfuscate,
   obscure, overlook distinctions, perplex, perplexity, perturb,
   perturbation, pi, play havoc with, play hob with, pother, pucker,
   put out, puzzle, raise hell, ramify, rattle, ravel, riffle, rile,
   ruffle, rummage, scramble, scrape along, scrape through, screw up,
   screw-up, shambles, shuffle, slip, snafu, snarl, snarl up, spoil,
   stew, stick, stumble, stump, swallow, sweat, swivet, tangle, throw,
   throw into confusion, throw off, tizzy, topsy-turviness, trip,
   tumble, unform, unsettle, unsettlement, unshape, upset, washout



The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

Muddle

   Original name of MDL.