quagmire
Americannoun
-
an area of miry or boggy ground whose surface yields under the tread; a bog.
-
a situation from which extrication is very difficult.
a quagmire of financial indebtedness.
- Synonyms:
- jam, scrape, quandary, dilemma, predicament
-
anything soft or flabby.
noun
-
a soft wet area of land that gives way under the feet; bog
-
an awkward, complex, or embarrassing situation
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of quagmire
Explanation
A quagmire is a dangerous place, like the muddy shoreline of a pond. Because it's so hard to climb out of a quagmire, the word has also come to mean any difficult or sticky situation you find yourself in. Long ago, quag was a synonym for "bog" or "marsh," a swampy area where water seems to sit instead of drain out. Mire is another word to describe such a place. As a verb mire means "stuck," like someone who's mired in quicksand or mired in work — both prevent you from going anywhere. In a quagmire, you get stuck physically — or, even more commonly, in a situation that is hard to escape because there is no easy solution.
Vocabulary lists containing quagmire
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Hamilton
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40 SAT words Beginning with "Q"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
MacFarlane: Screaming into a mic for long stretches with the Carter Pewterschmidt voice, the Quagmire voice, the Seamus voice.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 16, 2024
The Force-Feeding Quagmire Dozens of hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay are being kept alive with a painful, ethically questionable, and politically sensitive medical procedure.
From Newsweek • Jun. 20, 2013
Whether or not the awards race itself is compelling, I’ll be very interested to see if this move is a triumph or a Quagmire.
From Time • Oct. 2, 2012
But it's not, which reminded us of our astonishment at discovering that Seth MacFarlane does the voices on Family Guy for Stewie and Brian and Peter and Quagmire, sometimes in one scene.
From The Guardian • Jul. 26, 2012
The old Balm of Gilead cemetery was along Quagmire Road, about halfway between here and home.
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
