quicksand

[kwik-sand]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR quicksand ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

a bed of soft or loose sand saturated with water and having considerable depth, yielding under weight and therefore tending to suck down any object resting on its surface.

Origin of quicksand

First recorded in 1275–1325, quicksand is from the Middle English word qwykkesand. See quick, sand

Related formsquick·sand·y, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for quicksand

quagmire, peril, risk, danger, snag, difficulty, drawback, morass, bait, ploy, ambush, device, net, ruse, pitfall, goo, swamp, fen, dirt, slime

Examples from the Web for quicksand

Contemporary Examples of quicksand

To Herron it has felt like “a marathon that I ran in quicksand, getting nowhere quickly.”
Caught Between Military and Civilian Justice, a Battered Wife Waits and Waits for Help
Jacob Siegel
April 21, 2014
The McKesson proxy statement is 100-plus pages of quicksand.
He’s One of the Nation’s Highest-Paid CEOs—and You’ve Never Heard of Him
Gary Rivlin
January 2, 2012
Five minutes later, he is up to his thighs in liquid that is quicksand thick.
An Old-Fashioned Wine Harvest
Sophie Menin
October 18, 2010
An emaciated Steve Jobs jiving from an underground lair about his health is quicksand.
Steve Jobs' Messiah Complex
Eric Dezenhall
January 15, 2009

Historical Examples of quicksand

That green strip of willow is the edge of a quicksand where no one knows the depth.
The Treasure Trail
Marah Ellis Ryan
The boys will think a quicksand has swallowed us, and no one will be sleeping there at Soledad.
The Treasure Trail
Marah Ellis Ryan
In some places it seemed as bottomless as a pit of quicksand.
War from the Inside
Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
She had married the solid Hermie, and he had turned out to be quicksand.
Gigolo
Edna Ferber
You never know where you'll meet a quicksand, or a hole in the ice.
The Mermaid
Lily Dougall

British Dictionary definitions for quicksand

quicksand

noun

a deep mass of loose wet sand that submerges anything on top of it

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 quicksand

c.1300, from Middle English quyk "living" (see quick (adj.)) + sond "sand" (see sand (n.)). Old English had cwecesund, but this might have meant "lively strait of water."

quicksand in Science

quicksand

[kwĭk′sănd′]

A deep bed of loose, smoothly rounded sand grains, saturated with water and forming a soft, shifting mass that yields easily to pressure and tends to engulf objects resting on its surface. Although it is possible for a person to drown while mired in quicksand, the human body is less dense than any quicksand and is thus not drawn or sucked beneath the surface as is sometimes popularly believed.