quagmire
Syllables: quag·mireUK/ˈkwæɡ.maɪə(ɹ)/US/ˈkwæɡ.maɪɹ/
quagmire noun: a swampy, soggy area of ground.
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Noun
quagmire (plural quagmires)
- A swampy, soggy area of ground.
- That quagmire regularly ‘swallows’ caught-up hikers’ boots
- Never did I see a more dreary and depressing scene. Miles on miles of quagmire, varied only by bright green strips of comparatively solid ground, and by deep and sullen pools fringed with tall rushes, in which the bitterns boomed and the frogs croaked incessantly: miles on miles of it without a...1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC
- A perilous, mixed up and troubled situation; a hopeless tangle.
- The paperwork got lost in a quagmire of bureaucracy.
- Those election results are a quagmire for any coalition except one of national union.
- Synonyms:
- predicament, ass in a sling, bind, bucket of syrup, calvary, cauldron, cross, cross to bear, difficulty, dilemma
Verb
quagmire (third-person singular simple present quagmires, present participle quagmiring, simple past and past participle quagmired)
- To embroil (a person, etc.) in complexity or difficulty.
quagmire meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam
quagmire in Hindi
- swampy ground
- दलदल daldal
quagmire in Tamil
- புதை சேறு, புதை மணல், சேற்றுநிலம்
quagmire in Urdu
- swampy ground
- دلدل daldal
quagmire in Malayalam
- ചെളിക്കുണ്ട്, ചതുപ്പുപ്രദേശം, പ്രതിസന്ധിഘട്ടം
More languagesFewer languages
- quagmire in Kannada
- ಉಸುಬು, ಜೌಗುನೆಲ, ಕೆಸರು, ಪಂಕ
- quagmire in Punjabi
- ਜਿਲ੍ਹਣ jilhaṇ
- quagmire in Arabic
- مُسْتَنْقَع mustanqaʕ
- quagmire in Persian
- باتلاق bâtlâq, خلاب xalâb
Examples of quagmire in a sentence
- That which would have been a green haunt, with its fair fountain, is a dreary and useless quagmire.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter I, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry...
- I’ve had my doubts about Daenerys’ ability to rule, inspired in part by the quagmire in Meereen.2019 May 5, Danette Chavez, “Campaigns are Waged On and Off the Game Of Thrones Battlefield (Newbies)”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the...
- The only way to know Shakespeare is through his works, and his works are textual quagmires.2021 November 24, Stephen Marche, “The Algorithm That Could Take Us Inside Shakespeare’s Mind”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from...
Synonyms of quagmire
23 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of quagmire
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | quagmires |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | quagmires |
| present participle | quagmiring |
| past participle | quagmired |
| past | quagmired |
Origin of quagmire
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).
Words formed from quagmire
Questions about quagmire
- What does quagmire mean?
- Quagmire means a swampy, soggy area of ground.
- What is quagmire in Hindi?
- Quagmire in Hindi is दलदल (daldal). See Quagmire meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use quagmire in a sentence?
- That which would have been a green haunt, with its fair fountain, is a dreary and useless quagmire.
- What part of speech is quagmire?
- Quagmire can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce quagmire?
- Quagmire is pronounced /ˈkwæɡ.maɪə(ɹ)/ (UK).
- What is the plural of quagmire?
- The plural of quagmire is quagmires.
Words near quagmire in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: quagmire (page history and authors); quagmire (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); quagmire (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); quagmire (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਜਿਲ੍ਹਣ (Punjabi) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-quagmire.ogg.
Cite this entry: “quagmire.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/quagmire. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.