quagmire

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈkwæɡ.maɪə(ɹ)/, /ˈkwɒɡ.maɪə(ɹ)/ (UK); /ˈkwæɡ.maɪɹ/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

It was formed from obsolete quag “bog, marsh”^[2][3][4] and mire.^[2][3][4] Barnhart traces quag to earlier quabbe “marsh”, from an unrecorded Old English *cwabba.^[2] Early variants include quamyre, quabmire and quavemire.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Soft, wet, boggy ground that gives under the foot (1579–80).^[5][2][3][6]

Semantic evolution

The figurative sense of a situation that is hard to get out of is recorded by 1766 in Etymonline^[3] and from 1775 in the OED and Barnhart.^[5][2] Etymonline notes that it seems to have been little used in the 19th century and was revived in American English in 1965 for stalled military actions, especially the war in Vietnam, popularized by David Halberstam's book The Making of a Quagmire.^[3]

Timeline

• 1520s – quavemire.^[3]
• 1579–80 – a bog.^[5][2][3]
• 1635 – anything soft or flabby.^[5]
• 1775 – a difficult situation.^[5][2]
• 1965 – a stalled military conflict.^[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A difficult or dangerous situation that is hard to get out of; a predicament.
2. Soft, muddy ground that gives way underfoot; a bog.

Word family

• quagmiry

Related words

• quag
• mire

Usage notes

Random House gives predicament, dilemma, quandary, scrape and jam as synonyms of the figurative sense.^[4]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster