Definition of MORASS

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.

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 on the Web

The lawsuit drawing Paul Le Roux into this morass was filed in 2018 by Ira Kleiman, the brother of Dave Kleiman—Wright’s friend, fellow computer security guru, and business partner who died in 2013. — Evan Ratliff, WIRED, "Was Bitcoin Created by This International Drug Dealer? Maybe!," 16 July 2019 The Great Dismal Swamp was once an impenetrable morass where explorers vanished and runaway slaves escaped. — Washington Post, "Coal train derails into Great Dismal Swamp wildlife refuge," 26 June 2019 The entire transfer issue that has roiled college sports over the last year is stuck in a morass of waiver request red tape and unnecessary paperwork, and nothing the NCAA did Wednesday is going to relieve that headache. — Dan Wolken, USA TODAY, "Opinion: Time for NCAA to give football, basketball players one-time pass to transfer," 26 June 2019 Over the past 18 months, Google has pushed to improve Chrome extension security—a welcome goal given the sketchy morass of extensions that have been out there for years. — Lily Hay Newman, WIRED, "Google Says It Isn't Killing Ad Blockers. Ad Blockers Disagree," 12 June 2019 The church spent much of 2018 suffering through a morass of scandals and this year hasn't been much easier. — Daniel Burke, CNN, "Why the nation's two largest religious groups are talking about sex abuse this week," 10 June 2019 Language is constantly shifting, creating a process of untangling for historians that can feel more morass than mosaic. — Jeanna Kadlec, Longreads, "The 19th Century Lesbian Made for 21st Century Consumption," 7 June 2019 The goal: cut through a bureaucratic morass that slowed projects for months — sometimes years. — Rachel Swan, SFChronicle.com, "City speeds up approval process for new bike lanes, road safety improvements," 5 June 2019 The bank’s 2016 sales practices scandal has turned into a morass of regulatory problems that claimed the jobs of two CEOs and won’t go away. — Rachel Louise Ensign, WSJ, "Wells Fargo, Stuck in ‘Wait and See Mode,’ Struggles to Boost Its Businesses," 9 Apr. 2019

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.