Serbonian

American  

[ser-boh-nee-uhn] / sərˈboʊ ni ən /

adjective

1. of, relating to, or designating the large marshy tract of land in the northern part of ancient Egypt in which entire armies are said to have been swallowed up.

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Etymology

Origin of Serbonian

1660–70; < Greek Serbōní ( s ) ( límnē ) Serbonian (marsh) + -an

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Serbonian

That avenue was nicknamed “the great Serbonian bog.”

From The New Yorker ● Jan. 19, 2017

The first is deeper than the Serbonian bog, and would swallow up the whole British army.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 by Various

The fatal disease which depopulated the earth in the time of Justinian and his successors, first appeared in the neighborhood of Pelusium, between the Serbonian bog and the eastern channel of the Nile.

From History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 4 by Henry Hart Milman

Schiller has surveyed the dark Serbonian bog of Infidelity: but he has, made no causeway through it: the Philosophic Letters are a fragment.

From The Life of Friedrich Schiller Comprehending an Examination of His Works by Thomas Carlyle

Many a passage in it will seem to you at first a worse than Serbonian bog—a cave of impenetrable and undistinguishable darkness.

From In the School-Room Chapters in the Philosophy of Education by John S. (John Seely) Hart