Foggy

How to spell foggy

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce foggy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does foggy mean?

1. adjectiveFilled with or obscured by fog; thick with low cloud or mist.
2. adjectiveMentally unclear, muddled, or hard to recall or understand.

Foggy in a sentence

• The motorway was closed because the morning was too foggy for safe driving.

• After the long flight she felt foggy and could barely follow the meeting.

• A foggy harbour delayed every ferry crossing until noon.

• His memory of that evening was foggy and full of gaps.

Where does foggy come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The base word 'fog' is something of a mystery, and most scholars label its origin uncertain rather than pretend otherwise. It surfaced in English in the sixteenth century, and the leading idea links it to a Scandinavian source, comparing the Danish 'fog' meaning spray or driving snow and similar Old Norse and dialect words for a thick, drifting haze. An older sense of 'fog' actually meant the long, rank grass left standing in a field after the hay was cut, and the damp, marshy ground where such grass grew may have lent its name to the wet, low-lying mist that gathered there. The adjective 'foggy' was formed simply by adding the everyday '-y' ending, doubling the 'g' as English does after a short stressed vowel, so the spelling mirrors 'baggy' and 'soggy' rather than the single 'g' of 'foggier'-style temptations. From the literal mist it soon stretched to describe a clouded, muddled state of mind, the sense behind a 'foggy memory'.

How the word is built

• fog (the noun for thick mist)
• -g- (doubled consonant after a short vowel)
• -y (adjective suffix meaning 'full of' or 'characterised by')