murky
/ˈməːki
/adjective (murkier, murkiest)
1Dark and gloomy, especially due to thick mist: the sky was murky and a thin drizzle was falling...
- You breathe in and your lungs fill with a murky mist that threatens to choke the life right out of you.
- Infrared is particularly effective for penetrating thick, murky regions of space and revealing what lies beyond.
- The gravestones were barely seen through a thick layer of murky fog that encompassed everything it could get its claws around.
Synonyms
dark, gloomy, grey, leaden, dull, dim, overcast, cloudy, clouded, sunless, foggy, misty, dismal, dreary, bleak, louring, threatening, cheerless, depressing, shadowy, sombre
literary tenebrous, crepuscular
rare caliginous, Cimmerian
1.1(Of liquid) dark and dirty; not clear: the murky silt of a muddy pond...
- She is going with the kids and her mother and now the washing machine is broken, filled with dirty clothes and murky water.
- North, midlands, or south, clear water or murky water, barbel are a great species.
- The sharks were circling me slowly in the dark, murky water.
Synonyms
dirty, muddy, cloudy, turbid, opaque;
North American riled, roily, roiled
2Obscure or morally questionable: a government minister with a murky past...
- Among the many murky questions surrounding the killing is the mysterious background of the assailants.
- The president hopes so, but the limited number of rulings and writings leaves that question murky.
- The film's attitude to these questions is murky at best.
Synonyms
questionable, suspicious, suspect, dubious, dark, mysterious, secret
informal shady
Derivatives
murkily
- So we walk through the utterly captivating townlet of Chartres, with its cobbled lanes, old maisons, Italian style piazzas, haute shops and the Eure flowing gently, even a little murkily, at the base of the town.
- But I stared, amazed by how thick the city's smog was, a brown cloud with only a few building spires murkily visible within it.
- Like all debates the truth probably lies murkily in the middle.
murkiness
/ noun ...- The picture is reasonably sharp, though not reference quality, with some murkiness in the shadow detail being the chief complaint.
- It resembles reality in the murkiness of the decisions and choices that the characters have to make, and the complexity of cause and effect.
- Yet all this murkiness has not deterred advocates of sanctions from claiming absolute certainty on the issue.
Rhymes
- microanatomist
- microanatomy
- microangiopathy
- microarchitecture
- microarray
- microatoll
- microbacterium
- microbal
- microbalance
- microballoon
- microbarograph
- microbarom
- microbe
- microbeads
- microbeam
- microbeer
- microbenthic
- microbenthos
- microbial
- microbially
- microbian
- microbic
- microbicidal
- microbicide
- microbiological