morass

play

noun mo·rass \ mə-ˈras , mȯ- \

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

See morass defined for English-language learners

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morass was our Word of the Day on 03/17/2016. Hear the podcast!

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

There are very good, professional men and women on the front lines, doing triage in this morass of immigration confusion.

— christine m. flowers, Philly.com, "Pardon me, but Joe Arpaio is a bully and a disgrace," 27 Aug. 2017
A speckled fin, three feet long, flicked out of the water as Al Dove surfaced in a morass of fish guts and foam.

— peter guest, The Atlantic, "What It's Like to Draw Blood From a Whale Shark," 8 Aug. 2017
As all of the foregoing questions indicate, abandoning health care legislation for this budget and tax morass won’t make life easier for congressional Republicans.

— ed kilgore, Daily Intelligencer, "The GOP Health Care Bill Was a Mess. The GOP’s Tax Plans Are Messier.," 2 Aug. 2017
But key figures warned Republicans to move on before the health morass sinks the rest of the party's agenda - most importantly, the tax overhaul.

— the washington post, NOLA.com, "Republicans' failure to 'repeal and replace' Obamacare may cost them at the ballot box," 29 July 2017
But surely there are better, less wantonly destructive ways to drag ourselves out of the politics-as-sports morass into which we have been drawn.

— noah daponte-smith, National Review, "On Complacency and the Thinning of Democracy," 28 July 2017
And Justin passed away from brain cancer in April 2012 — ironically, my willfulness and mulishness served us in good stead when dealing with the morass of insurance and finding the best doctors.

— donna freydkin, Glamour, "I Busted My Boyfriend With Another Woman—and Married Him Anyway," 27 July 2017
Amid the Russia investigations and Washington's legislative morass, Trump has turned his frustrations on some of his most loyal advisers.

— zeke j miller, Time, "President Trump Goes to War With His Staff," 27 July 2017
Legal experts say Hawaii got caught in a procedural morass.

— jennifer sinco kelleher, The Seattle Times, "Q&A: Hawaii’s push to reduce scope of travel ban bogged down," 11 July 2017

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.