muddlement

English

Etymology

From muddle +‎ -ment.

Noun

muddlement (countable and uncountable, plural muddlements)

1. The state of being muddled or the act of muddling; confusion; disorganization.
   • 1857, Wilkie Collins, The Dead Secret - Volume 2, page 216:

     I am lost in my own muddlement; and whereabouts the right place is, and how I am to get myself back into it, as I am a living sinner is more than I know!

   • 1859, Arthur Helps, Friends in Council - Volume 4, page 181:

     You may heap muddlement upon muddlement; and, with a free people, though much mischief is done and much good prevented, still they work on steadily , each man in his private capacity doing something to retrieve the effects of bad or of indolent government.

   • 1927, Money Writes!, page 119:

     I have stated that some of our protestant writers are muddled. I begin with one who is muddlement and nothing else; muddlement not merely by nature but by choice; muddlement as a religion, a philosophy, and an ethical code.

   • 1967, New Zealand. Parliament. House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates, page 1328:

     The Opposition was charging the Government with muddlement and with mismanagement.

   • 2016, Joseph Michael Sepesy, Word Dances III: Celebration:

     At best, words are fumbled but somewhat redeemed with an accepted frustration and shrugs, and at worst, phrases, punctuated with grimaced muddlements, simply fail.