He listened in a daze, not taking in a single word.
Tips
usage
First-tone hū is the hands-on 'smear a coating on' sense, and is also the tone the syllable takes in dazed reduplications: 迷迷糊糊 (groggy), 黏糊糊 (sticky and gooey). For 'blurry / muddled / to paste' use the hú reading.
Rice on the left is literal: paste was traditionally made by cooking grain into a thick, sticky mass. The radical also lends the muddled sense, since 糊涂 (confused) is the mind being as gummed-up as a pot of rice paste. It groups 糊 with 粥 and 粘.
Provides the sound hú unchanged. It heads a phonetic series including 湖, 蝴, 葫. The reckless / disorderly sense of 胡 happens to align with the muddled meaning of 糊涂, a happy accident that aids memorisation.
