maze

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English mase (“delusion, bewilderment”), also spelled maze and masse.^[2][3] Most dictionaries take the noun from the verb masen (“to confuse, daze”),^[4][5][6][7] inherited from Old English āmasian (“to confound, stupefy”),^[4][8][5] the verb that is also the source of amaze; the verb maze itself is probably a shortening of amaze.^{[9][6][10][11]} The OED instead takes the noun as probably the reflex of an unattested noun Old English *mæs or *mase, of which āmasian would be a derivative,^[9] and Etymonline also suggests such a noun.^[12] Further back the origin is uncertain.^[9][12] Holthausen, Klein and Skeat compared Norwegian masast (“to fall asleep, begin to dream”) and Swedish masa (“to be slow, sluggish”),^[13][5][14] and the OED lists these and other North Germanic words, such as mas (“exhausting labour, nagging”) and Danish mase (“to toil”), as sometimes regarded as cognate.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Delirium or delusion, a state of confused or deceived mind: about 1300, in the poem Judas Iscariot.^[9][3] The Middle English noun meant a source of confusion or deception, a delusion or fantasy, and also bewilderment and disorder.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word belonged to the mind: delusion, a deceptive trick, and later a state of bewilderment, the sense that survives in the phrase in a maze.^[9][2] Ayto notes that the noun first meant "delusion, delirium" and only in the late 14th century came to mean a structure of bewildering complexity.^[15] Etymonline explains the new sense as something meant to confuse or mislead.^[12] Chaucer has the word three times, both for a labyrinth and for bewilderment,^[16] and the first record of the labyrinth sense is in his Legend of Good Women (about 1386).^[3][9] The OED notes that a place name, the Mase in Southwark, used in 1422 for the gardens of the Abbot of Battle's inn, may imply this sense slightly earlier.^[9] From 1531 the word was used of any confusing network of streets or mass of things,^[9] and since 1598 of a winding movement, as in a dance or of a hunted hare.^[9] The verb, to daze or bewilder, is now archaic or dialectal;^[9][17] the English Dialect Dictionary records it, with mazed "stupefied", from Scotland and Ireland to Cornwall and America.^[18] Johnson (1755) gave "a labyrinth" first and "confusion of thought" second.^[19]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – delirium, delusion (obsolete).^[9][3]
• c. 1350 – vain or idle amusement (obsolete).^[9]
• c. 1386 – a labyrinth, in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women.^[3][9]
• c. 1390 – verb, to daze or stupefy, in Chaucer.^[9]
• c. 1425 – a state of bewilderment or amazement.^[9]
• 1531 – a confusing network of streets or tangle of things.^[9]
• 1598 – a winding movement, as in a dance.^[9]
• 1605 – verb, to wander as if in a maze.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A network of winding, interconnecting paths or passages, such as one bordered by high hedges in a garden, built to puzzle those who try to find the way through: The children got lost in the hedge maze.^[20][17][9]
2. A puzzle printed on paper, in which one traces a path through a pattern of lines.^[20]
3. Any confusing network of streets or paths, or a bewildering mass of things: a maze of regulations.^[20][9]
4. A path with blind alleys used to study learning in animals.^[17][20]
5. A state of bewilderment or confusion, chiefly in the phrase in a maze.^[9][6]

Verb

1. (archaic or dialect) To daze or stupefy; to bewilder.^[17][9][6]
2. To wander as if in a maze.^[17][9]

Word family

• mazelike
• mazedness
• intermaze
• T-maze
• mazy

Related words

• amaze
• maize

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster records a separate British dialect word maze, a quantity of herrings (500 to 650), which comes through French from Low German.^[17] The OED has another maze, a hare's form (1486–1740), probably an error for or a variant of meuse.^[9] Dictionary.com lists maize and maze as words easily confused.^[7]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
13. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
14. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
16. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
17. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
19. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
20. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins