Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of miry
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at mire, -y 1
Explanation
Anything soggy, soft, and a little muddy is miry. Your bright white sneakers won't look brand new anymore after you hike along the miry riverbank in them. The adjective miry, which is good for describing places that are boggy or mucky, comes from mire, "a stretch of swampy ground." Mire derives from the Old Norse word myrr, "bog or swamp," and shares a root (meaning "damp") with the word moss. Miry things are damp and squishy, like the ground around a marsh or the muddy surface of a dirt road after heavy rain.
Vocabulary lists containing miry
Listening for Lions
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Inferno
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Titus Andronicus
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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.
According to the historian Edward Hasted, writing in the 1770s, Cooling was “an unfrequented place, the roads of which are deep and miry, and it is as unhealthy as it is unpleasant.”
From New York Times ● Nov. 6, 2018
Without access to the inter-stage area, which turns the miry walk between the two main stages into a comparatively short hop, the following would not be possible.
From Time ● Jul. 7, 2014
The French army had been marching all night over miry roads, and through mountain defiles.
From Harper's New Monthly Magazine Vol. IV, No. 19, Dec 1851 by Various
He had to step aside as he spoke to let a manure cart go by, labouring along the miry way.
From Mitchelhurst Place, Vol. I (of 2) A Novel by Veley, Margaret
There's a deep wide ditch, marshy in places, wet and miry everywhere for a mile either way, and the banks are steep.
From From School to Battle-field A Story of the War Days by King, Charles
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.
