mire
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
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to plunge and fix in mire; cause to stick fast in mire.
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to involve; entangle.
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to soil with mire; bespatter with mire.
verb (used without object)
noun
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a boggy or marshy area
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mud, muck, or dirt
verb
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to sink or cause to sink in a mire
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(tr) to make dirty or muddy
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(tr) to involve, esp in difficulties
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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miresimple
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miressimple
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have miredperfect
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has miredperfect
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am miringprogressive
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are miringprogressive
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is miringprogressive
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have been miringperfect progressive
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has been miringperfect progressive
Past
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miredsimple
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had miredperfect
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was miringprogressive
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were miringprogressive
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had been miringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of mire
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English, from Old Norse mȳrr “bog”; cognate with Old English mēos moss
Explanation
A mire is mushy ground like quicksand, so if you feel yourself trapped in a sticky situation, consider yourself mired. One gets mired IN something — like in a dispute or in a love triangle. Mire still has its original, though less-used, sense of a slushy, muddy bit of land that gives way underfoot, also known as a quagmire. One of the most famous mires in literary history was the one haunted by the Hound of the Baskervilles in Conan Doyle's classic. Have the fibs you told your beloved come back to haunt you? You're stuck in a mire then, a treacherous situation it's going to be pretty hard to squirm out of.
Vocabulary lists containing mire
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
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"Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell
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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.
Here are three tips to help you navigate the undead monetary mire.
From Salon • Mar. 24, 2026
Earlier on Sunday, a late Alexis Claude Maurice penalty took Augsburg to a 1-0 home win over rock-bottom Heidenheim, lifting the hosts six points clear of the relegation mire.
From Barron's • Feb. 15, 2026
But after reading “The Dream Factory,” you might like him better when he still had his feet in the Shoreditch mire.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 7, 2025
The answer, according to the management team tasked with extricating the company from its financial mire, is that it was forced on the company by self-interested owners.
From Los Angeles Times • May 21, 2024
But the choir returned for an encore anyway, with tambourines, to sing: Swing low, sweet Chariot, And scoop me from the mire; Take me up to Glory, Snatched from Eternal Fire.
From "A Long Way from Chicago" 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.
