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
But the joy is short-lived, and in my dreams I find myself tumbling over precipices and wading through miry swamps.
From Unfettered A Novel by Sutton E. (Sutton Elbert) Griggs
The road was horribly miry; presently, as I was staggering through a slough, just after I had passed a little cottage, I heard a cracked voice crying, “I suppose you lost your way?”
From Wild Wales The People, Laguage & Scenery by George Henry Borrow
“God grant that I may be drawing near some inhabited place,” said I. The path now grew very miry, and there were pools of water on either side.
From Wild Wales The People, Laguage & Scenery by George Henry Borrow
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
