MURKY (murkier, murkiest)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected forms: murkier    , murkiest   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does murky mean? 

• MURKY (adjective)
  The adjective MURKY has 2 senses:

1. (of liquids) clouded as with sediment

2. dark or gloomy

  Familiarity information: MURKY used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MURKY (adjective)

Comparative: murkier   
Superlative: murkiest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

(of liquids) clouded as with sediment

Synonyms:

cloudy; mirky; muddy; murky; turbid

Context example:

murky waters

Similar:

opaque (not transmitting or reflecting light or radiant energy; impenetrable to sight)

Derivation:

murk (an atmosphere in which visibility is reduced because of a cloud of some substance)

murkiness (the quality of being cloudy)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Dark or gloomy

Synonyms:

mirky; murky

Context example:

murky rooms lit by smoke-blackened lamps

Similar:

shaded (protected from heat and light with shade or shadow)

Derivation:

murk; murkiness (an atmosphere in which visibility is reduced because of a cloud of some substance)

 Context examples 

Still, the long, long night seemed heavy and hopeless as ever, and no promise of day was in the murky sky.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The western half of the sky had by now grown murky.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Galaxies grow by accumulating gas from their surroundings and converting it to stars, but the details of this process have remained murky.

(Spiraling filaments feed young galaxies, National Science Foundation’s Division of Astronomical Sciences.)

Dark and murky was it all, but hope mounts high in youth, and it ever fluttered over all the turmoil of his thoughts like a white plume amid the shock of horsemen.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Holmes’s cold, thin fingers closed round my wrist and led me forward down a long hall, until I dimly saw the murky fanlight over the door.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Not alone did it give him the same dark and murky aspect of the Silva house, inside and out, but it seemed to emphasize that animal-like strength of his which she detested.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He flicked the horse with his whip, and we dashed away through the endless succession of sombre and deserted streets, which widened gradually, until we were flying across a broad balustraded bridge, with the murky river flowing sluggishly beneath us.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was a murky confusion—here and there blotted with a colour like the colour of the smoke from damp fuel—of flying clouds, tossed up into most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than there were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as if, in a dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her way and were frightened.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The air was thick and murky with the smoke of it; and this, combined with the violent movement of the ship as she struggled through the storm, would surely have made me sea-sick had I been a victim to that malady.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

And last the murky yellow cars of the Chicago Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad looking cheerful as Christmas itself on the tracks beside the gate.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)