miry

American  

[mahyuhr-ee] / ˈmaɪər i /

adjective

mirier, miriest

1. of the nature of mire; swampy.

   miry ground.

2. abounding in mire; muddy.

3. covered or bespattered with mire.

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Other Word Forms

• miriness
  noun
• unmiry
  adjective

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

miry

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

Up the steep and miry Bush track, then like any other Bush track, the poor horses strained and struggled, slipped and fell.

From Thirty Years in Australia by Ada Cambridge

Still, they did not touch bottom; miry points round which the tide swirled, rotting logs on mud-banks, and misty trees crept astern, and at last they heard the rumble of the swell on beaten sand.

From The Coast of Adventure by Harold Bindloss

Then the pedantic Doctor John Burton, who journeyed into Sussex in 1751, had no less unfortunate acquaintance with these miry ways than our dilettante of Strawberry Hill.

From The Brighton Road The Classic Highway to the South by Charles G. (Charles George) Harper