morass

noun mo·rass \ mə-ˈras , mȯ- \

|Updated on: 19 Aug 2018

Examples: morass in a Sentence

Editor's Note: The Swampy History of morass

Definition of morass

1 : marsh, swamp

2 a : a situation that traps, confuses, or impedes

a legal morass

b : an overwhelming or confusing mass or mixture

a morass of traffic jams
—Mary Roach

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morassy

play \-ˈra-sē\ adjective

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Examples of morass in a Sentence

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

Recent Examples of morass from the Web

But rather than provide clarity on the future of DACA, the ruling only adds layers of complexity to an existing morass in the courts about the program's future.

— tal kopan, CNN, "DACA ruling further complicates complex legal path forward," 25 Apr. 2018
In office for 17 months, Moïse has been unable to lift Haiti out of its deep economic morass despite a litany of promises.

— jacqueline charles, miamiherald, "Haiti has put a fuel hike on hold. But is it enough to save the prime minister's job?," 7 July 2018
There are also ominous notes for Trump in the book, in that Comey -- at least before he got dragged into the 2016 election morass -- was seen as one of Washington's straight-shooters, much like Mueller himself.

— stephen collinson, CNN, "Why James Comey is not done with Donald Trump," 25 Apr. 2018
The echoes to the privacy morass of 2018 are, not surprisingly, fully intentional.

— brian barrett, WIRED, "Westworld’s Real Villain Has Always Been Its Privacy Policy," 24 June 2018
The goal then was to get geeks from Silicon Valley to take tours of duty in Washington, cut through the morass of military bureaucracy, and build technology that’s actually user-friendly and doesn’t take years to produce.

— issie lapowsky, WIRED, "The Pentagon Is Building a Dream Team of Tech-Savvy Soldiers," 2 July 2018
General Motors itself rose from that morass, an amalgam of several companies.

— rick tetzeli, Fortune, "GM Gets Ready for a Post-Car Future," 23 May 2018
Groveland over the last couple years has dragged itself through a morass of charges and countercharges swirling around former city manager Redmond Jones, who was dismissed for cause and moved back to the midwest.

— lauren ritchie, OrlandoSentinel.com, "Groveland still fighting former manager after two years," 18 June 2018
Image The new leader of New York City’s subway may know exactly how to fix the tattered system, but navigating the morass of the state’s political class has already emerged as a much bigger challenge.

— New York Times, "Ambitious Plan to Fix New York Subway Is Already Facing Obstacles," 23 May 2018

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.

The Swampy History of morass

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.