the.com/quagmire
a swamp so sticky it became a metaphor for every decision you regret
means A difficult, messy situation that's hard to escape — or, literally, a patch of soft, boggy ground that swallows your boots.
from A 16th-century mash-up of two old words for the same nasty terrain: 'quag' (a marsh or bog, related to the dialect word 'quag' meaning to shake or quake, since the ground trembled underfoot) and 'mire' (an old Norse-derived word for swampy mud, a cousin of 'moss'). So it's literally a 'shaking swamp' — and the doubling-up makes sense, because no single word felt sticky enough.
- literal root
- a bog where the ground quakes underfoot
- etymology
- quag means marsh, mire means more marsh
- war jargon
- the word politicians reach for after the invasion
- family guy
- giggity made it a household name
- quicksand cousin
- thrashing only sinks you deeper
the great dismal swamp — 1,600 sq mi wetland spanning virginia and north carolina, formed from ancient lake drummond
the everglades — 1.5 million acre sawgrass marsh in florida, unesco world heritage site since 1979
mesopotamian marshes — wetlands in southern iraq where tigris and euphrates rivers meet, largest marsh ecosystem in western asia