quagmire
[kwag-mahyuh r, kwog-]
- an area of miry or boggy ground whose surface yields under the tread; a bog.
- a situation from which extrication is very difficult: a quagmire of financial indebtedness.
- anything soft or flabby.
Show More
Origin of quagmire
Synonyms
See more synonyms for quagmire on Thesaurus.com2. predicament, dilemma, quandary, scrape, jam.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for quagmire
Contemporary Examples
And the reasons for that suggest just how densely complicated the Mideast quagmire has become.
Obama’s Arab Backers May Draw the U.S. Deep Into the Mideast QuagmireJamie Dettmer
September 25, 2014
Creator David Simon meant the line to be a reference to the quagmire of the Iraq War.
Four years later, he has absented himself utterly from the quagmire in which nearly 90 million Egyptians find themselves.
In the 1980s the goal was to defeat the Soviets by creating a quagmire for the Red Army like Vietnam was for America.
Let's keep it like that, rather than sliding into a quagmire that renders it useless to the republic.
Historical Examples
But now am I indeed fast stuck in a quagmire of uncertainty.
Nicanor - Teller of TalesC. Bryson Taylor
The road through Thiepval was a bog, the village was a quagmire.
The Old Front LineJohn Masefield
The pond was a thin piece of canvas painted to represent the quagmire.
Watch Yourself Go ByAl. G. Field
Already our horses were stumbling over corpses as if in a quagmire.
The Brass BellEugne Sue
The lane was muddy even in the roadway, and on the banks it was a quagmire.
A Dog with a Bad NameTalbot Baines Reed
quagmire
- a soft wet area of land that gives way under the feet; bog
- an awkward, complex, or embarrassing situation
Show More
Word Origin
C16: from quag + mire
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for quagmire
n.
1570s, "bog, marsh," from obsolete quag "bog, marsh" + mire (n.). Early spellings include quamyre (1550s), quabmire (1590s), quadmire (c.1600). Extended sense of "difficult situation, inescapable bad position" is recorded by 1766; but this seems to have been not in common use in much of 19c. (absent in "Century Dictionary," 1902), but revived in a narrower sense in reference to military invasions in American English, 1965, with reference to Vietnam (popularized in the book title "The Making of a Quagmire" by David Halberstam).
Show More
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper