quagmire

noun

1. 1

   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 break, unless the fever fog can be called a break.

2. 2

   figurativeA 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.

   I’ve had my doubts about Daenerys’ ability to rule, inspired in part by the quagmire in Meereen. Still, this feels like a precipitous decline. The queen of sobriquets has always been power hungry.

   The only way to know Shakespeare is through his works, and his works are textual quagmires.

verb

1. 1

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

Forms

plural

quagmires

past tense

quagmired

past participle

quagmired

present participle

quagmiring

third person singular

quagmires