murky

adj

Etymology: From Middle English mirky. Related to Old Norse myrkr, Russian мрак (mrak) and its Slavic cognates. By surface analysis, murk + -y.

1. Hard to see through, as a fog or mist.

   “The Streets of London, to be beheld in the very height of their glory, should be seen on a dark, dull, murky, winter's night, when there is just enough damp gently stealing down to make the pavement greasy without cleansing it of any of its impurities, […]”

2. Dark, dim, gloomy.

   “Ferdinand: As I hope / For quite dayes, faire Iſſue, and long life, / With ſuch loue, as 'tis now the murkieſt den, / The moſt opportune place, the ſtrongſt ſuggeſtion, / Our worſer Genius can, shall neuer melt / Mine honor into luſt,[…]”

   “The future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program got murkier Tuesday when the Texas attorney general made good on a threat to challenge it in court.”

3. Cloudy, indistinct, obscure.

   “murky waters”

   “murky territory”

4. Dishonest, shady.

   “Ever since X-Men: First Class set the series' clock back a few decades and installed Michael Fassbender's moody Magneto and James McAvoy's louche Charles Xavier as replacements for Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart's chess-playing pappies, the big-screen X-Men's central conflict—Xavier's Booker T. Washington-esque School For Gifted Youngsters vs. a rogue's gallery of evil mutants, crew cuts, and politicos—has gotten a lot murkier.”