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.
See Examples For:
It means Forest will know they need to capitalise soon or risk being dragged back into the mire of a relegation battle where reputations count for little and big names are feeling the heat.
From BBC ● Apr. 13, 2026
After routing their bitter rivals 4-1 in November, they made the short trip up the Seven Sisters Road to inflict another humiliating defeat that pushed Tottenham deeper into the relegation mire.
From Barron's ● Feb. 22, 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
“Our Father”—he was singing—“You who took my feet out the mire and clay—” The church moaned, “Amen.”
From "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou
But there's no small amount of controversy when it comes to marshes, mires, fens, bogs, vernal pools, prairie ponds, pocosins, sloughs, small streams, seasonal streams, and rain-dependent streams.
From Salon ● May 2, 2023
As society mires its way out of the COVID-19 pandemic, health coverage has come into sharp focus for all.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 27, 2022
In addition, FEO is using satellites to monitor water levels over time in EU-protected boreal wetlands called appa mires.
From Science Magazine ● Nov. 17, 2021
What was once a coastal bay is now dotted with small lakes, peat bogs, and mires with white sphagnum mosses and grassy sedge plants.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 13, 2021
The orcs hindered by the mires that lay before the hills halted and poured their arrows into the defending ranks.
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Every item is mired in internal arguments over priorities and strategy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 16, 2026
Bitcoin, the pioneering cryptocurrency, is mired in a big drawdown, as are most of the other major coins.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 2, 2026
The few rescues have offered a glimmer of hope in a tragedy that has shaken a country mired in an economic crisis that has depleted its capacity to respond to disasters.
From Barron's ● Jun. 29, 2026
For four seasons, we watched The Bear’s family of choice choose the second way, even as Carmy’s psyche remains mired in disorder.
From Salon ● Jun. 28, 2026
I was in the air for another second before sharp leaves raked my face as I hit the upper fronds of a bushy branch, sinking in until I stopped, panting, mired in brambles.
From "Endangered" by Eliot Schrefer
Tesla advised against the resolution because, it said, arbitration "benefits both parties with a fair resolution and a speedier return to their respective priorities without miring them in lengthy litigation."
From Reuters ● Oct. 6, 2021
He dropped to 24-43 in four seasons in Jacksonville, falling a few plays shy of the franchise’s first Super Bowl in 2017 and then miring near the bottom of the league since.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 3, 2021
The resin puddled and pooled, miring countless creatures "like a mini–La Brea Tar Pits," says paleontologist Ryan McKellar at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Regina, Canada.
From Science Magazine ● May 23, 2019
Connell and Marianne are not free, and Normal People becomes a tender, bruised meditation on how two people can keep miring themselves in misery even when happiness is within their reach.
From Slate ● Apr. 15, 2019
The discoveries once again fractured the consensus about the early American history, miring it in dispute.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
