Quagmire

//ˈkwæɡ.maɪə(ɹ)// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A swampy, soggy area of ground.

    "That quagmire regularly ‘swallows’ caught-up hikers’ boots"

  2. 2
    a soft wet area of low-lying land that sinks underfoot wordnet
  3. 3
    A perilous, mixed up and troubled situation; a hopeless tangle. figuratively

    "The paperwork got lost in a quagmire of bureaucracy."

Verb
  1. 1
    To embroil (a person, etc.) in complexity or difficulty. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
miremirequagass in a slingbaygallbind

Example

More examples

"The war quickly turned into a quagmire."

Etymology

Recorded since 1579, from quag + mire. The sense “perilous, mixed up and troubled situation” has been recorded since 1775. Alternatively, the word may apparently be a variation of the earlier quakemire, from quake + mire. Compare typologically Bulgarian тресавище (tresavište), Polish trzęsawisko, Russian тряси́на (trjasína) (akin to трясти́ (trjastí)); зыбь (zybʹ), зыбу́н (zybún) (<… Proto-Slavic *zybь).

Related phrases

mixed up

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.