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advised against becoming involved in that country's civil war, warning that escape from that morass might prove nigh impossible
the distracted driver had driven his car off the road and into a morass
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'morass.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
We won't swamp you with details: morass comes from the Dutch word moeras, which itself derives from an Old French word, maresc, meaning "marsh." Morass has been part of English for centuries, and in its earliest uses it was a synonym of swamp or marsh. (That was the sense Robert Louis Stevenson used when he described Long John Silver emerging from "a low white vapour that had crawled during the night out of the morass" in Treasure Island.) Imagine walking through a thick, muddy swamp—it's easy to compare such slogging to trying to disentangle yourself from a sticky situation. By the mid-19th century, morass had gained a figurative sense, and could refer to any predicament that was as murky, confusing, or difficult to navigate as a literal swamp or quagmire.
First Known Use: 1655
in the meaning defined at sense 1
See Words from the same year: an area of soft, wet ground : a marsh or swamp
See words that rhyme with morass Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for morass Spanish Central: Translation of morass Nglish: Translation of morass for Spanish speakers
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