maze n. a network of paths and hedges designed as a puzzle through which one has to find a way.
labyrinth n. a complicated irregular network of passages or paths in which it is difficult to find one's way; a maze
The dictionary treats these words as synonyms. However, reading the Wiki article on Labyrinths today I discovered that a distinction has developed:
The term labyrinth is often used interchangeably with maze, but modern scholars of the subject use a stricter definition. For them, a maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage with choices of path and direction; while a single-path (unicursal) labyrinth has only a single Eulerian path to the center. A labyrinth has an unambiguous through-route to the center and back and is not designed to be difficult to navigate.
This is strange. My dictionary tries to tell me that the word labyrinth comes from Daedalus whose maze/labyrinth for the Minotaur was meant to be inextricable.
Down a different path, I've always enjoyed that felicitous connection between a maze and amaze
OP
