morass

noun mo·rass \ mə-ˈras , mȯ- \

|Updated on: 10 Jun 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

Judith Newman wrote in The New York Times in February 2017 that the political morass following the 2016 presidential election explained why Americans had latched onto hygge—or cuddle puddles with snacks and good lighting.

— laura norkin, Glamour, "‘Päntsdrunk’ Is the Scandinavian Wellness Trend We Need Right Now," 29 May 2018
Nothing was ever allowed to bog down into those morass-like personal hang-ups.

— Vogue, "Portrait of a Reporter as a Young Man: Tom Wolfe in Vogue, April 1966," 15 May 2018
Even if the primary purpose of the Civil tokens is to fund journalism, the possibility for speculation means they could be considered as securities, which would mean an expensive regulatory morass for Civil.

— jeff john roberts, Fortune, "Blockchain Media Firm Civil Launches an Ambitious Studio to Build an 'Open Marketplace for Journalists'," 2 May 2018
Betting could eventually be legal nationwide, but there is a legal morass to navigate before that happens.

— kevin draper, New York Times, "How Betting Will Change the Sports Media Business," 15 May 2018
Chappaquiddick attempts to navigate this morass by focusing on the day of the accident and its immediate aftermath.

— alex shephard, The New Republic, "The Eternal Return of the Kennedys," 30 Apr. 2018
This decision by Paul Ryan is another distressing development in the worsening morass that is the legislative branch of our country.

— gerard baker, WSJ, "The 10-Point.," 13 Apr. 2018
That legal morass led an accrediting body to threaten to end its relationship with the chain, which resulted in the Education Department curtailing ITT’s access to federal student aid.

— danielle douglas-gabriel, Washington Post, "Students from defunct ITT Tech get a shot at claiming school’s remaining assets," 24 Jan. 2018
Confronted by the morass that is Trump—the power struggles, whiplash of news, upending of norms, surreal rhetoric—the imagination strains.

— spencer kornhaber, The Atlantic, "Can Protest Art Get Its Mojo Back?," 7 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.