to becloud someone's judgment

8.3

To make a person's thinking unclear so they decide badly

idiom

: nublar el juicio de alguien

She feared that personal feelings might becloud her judgment during the negotiation.

Examples

Grief can easily becloud someone's judgment in a difficult situation.
Ambition sometimes beclouds people's judgment when making important choices.
Strong emotions can becloud someone's judgment and lead to poor decisions.
Fear often beclouds people's judgment, making it hard to see the truth.
When under pressure, stress can becloud my judgment and cause me to hesitate.

Synonyms

to cloud judgment

vsto becloud someone's judgment

22 6.7

Make someone unable to think clearly because of strong feelings or outside pressure

is about confusing the ability to decide rather than general obscuring

to becloud

vsto becloud someone's judgment

1 8.9

To make something less clear and hard to see, often by smoke, fog or strong feelings

is focused on weakening the ability to decide rather than visual obscuring

Antonyms

to clarify

248 3.3

To make something clear so others can understand it

to enlighten

55 4.8

To give someone clear information to help them understand something

How Clouded

to obscure

86 7.0

to becloud someone's judgment

8.3

to cloud

56 4.4

to bias

6 4.9

to sway

81 3.6

Surface Forms

becloud someone's judgment infinitive

beclouded someone's judgment past

beclouded someone's judgment past participle

beclouding someone's judgment present participle

beclouds someone's judgment third person singular

Morphology

becloud + someone's + judgment

The meaning 'to make someone's ability to judge less clear or more confused' is directly and compositionally derived from 'becloud' (to obscure or cloud) plus 'judgment' (ability to judge). The clouding metaphor for impaired mental clarity is common cross-linguistically and follows standard English composition, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would readily infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Becloud someone's judgment comes from the image of clouds covering what you see: when clouds hide a view, you cannot see clearly. So if feelings or strong opinions becloud your judgment, they hide clear thinking and make you 'confused' when you try to decide.