quagmire

noun

quag·​mire ˈkwag-ˌmī(-ə)r  ˈkwäg- 

plural quagmires

1

: soft miry land that shakes or yields under the foot

2

: a difficult, precarious, or entrapping position : predicament

Synonyms

• bind
• box
• catch-22
• corner
• dilemma
• fix
• hole
• impasse
• jackpot [chiefly West]
• jam
• mire
• pickle
• predicament
• rabbit hole
• rattrap
• spot
• sticky wicket
• swamp

Examples of quagmire in a Sentence

That was six months ago, when the Defense secretary laughingly dismissed the idea that Iraq was, or could turn into, a quagmire. But as Rumsfeld sat down last Friday morning to face Sen. John McCain, who spent six years in a Vietnamese prison, no one was laughing. —Michael Hirsh et al., Newsweek, 17 Nov. 2003

State involvement will create a vast bioethical quagmire. Even if everyone magically agrees that improving a child's memory is as valid as avoiding dyslexia, there will still be things taxpayers aren't ready to pay for—genes of unproven benefit, say, or alterations whose downsides may exceed the upside. —Robert Wright, Time, 11 Jan.1999

the party was once again facing its quadrennial quagmire: the candidate sufficiently liberal to win the nomination would be too liberal for the general election

a protracted custody dispute that became a judicial quagmire

Recent Examples on the Web

Afghanistan descended into a quagmire of bloody insurgency and government corruption, before the Taliban took back control of the country in 2021. —Alexander Smith, NBC News, 11 July 2024

Moving it through the quagmire of classified documents allegedly hidden in the former president’s residence at Mar a Lago and toward a more (this is not original) perfect union, proving once again since 1776 that our votes are pivotal in the ongoing fight to ensure freedom. —John D. Witiak, Baltimore Sun, 6 July 2024

Amid this quagmire, the journalist Paige McClanahan’s book, The New Tourist, is a levelheaded defense of tourism that proposes a genuinely helpful framework for thinking about our own voyages. —Chelsea Leu, The Atlantic, 30 June 2024

Rising up from this quagmire comes a demagogue who, as only Johnny knows, is going to destroy the world. —The Week Us, theweek, 23 Apr. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1566, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

quagmire

noun

quag·​mire ˈkwag-ˌmī(ə)r  ˈkwäg- 

1

: soft spongy wet ground that shakes or gives way under the foot

2

: a difficult situation from which it is hard to escape