quagmire

1 a difficult, puzzling, or embarrassing situation from which there is no easy escape <the party was once again facing its quadrennial quagmire: the candidate sufficiently liberal to win the nomination would be too liberal for the general election> Synonyms bind, box, catch-22, corner, dilemma, fix, hole, impasse, jackpot [chiefly West], jam, mire, pickle, predicament, rabbit hole, rattrap, spot, sticky wicket, swampRelated Words difficulty, node; hot water, soup; pinch, plight, quandary, scrape, trouble; deadlock, halt, logjam, stalemate, standstill; clutch, crisis, crossroad, emergency, exigency, juncture, strait

2 something that catches and holds <a protracted custody dispute that became a judicial quagmire> Synonyms entanglement, mesh(es), morass, net, noose, web, quicksand, snare, tanglement, toil(s), trapRelated Words knot, snarl, tangle; cat's cradle, labyrinth, maze; cobweb, spiderweb