English

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Etymology

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From muddle (to think and act in a confused, aimless way) + through.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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muddle through (third-person singular simple present muddles through, present participle muddling through, simple past and past participle muddled through)

  1. (transitive, intransitive) To succeed (often clumsily) despite being ill-equipped or inadequately trained.
    Synonyms: get along, get by, make do, (Britain) muddle along, scrape along, scrape by
    I’ve only had a few lessons, but I can muddle through the test.
    • 1943 (date written), “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, in Ralph Blane (lyrics), Hugh Martin (music), Meet Me in St. Louis (soundtrack; 1944), performed by Judy Garland:
      Someday soon we all will be together / If the fates allow. / Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow. / So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.
    • 2023 March 8, Christian Wolmar, “Labour passes up the chance to deliver a forceful rail policy”, in RAIL, number 978, page 34:
      If Labour's senior team thinks that it can just muddle through to the next election without a coherent plan about how to tackle the problems of the industry, it is making a big mistake.

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Further reading

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