mire

1 soft wet earth played on a football field that was thick with mire Synonyms guck (or gook), mud, muck, ooze, slime, slop, sludge, slushRelated Words gumbo, silt; clay, dirt, gravel, humus, loam, sand, soil

2 spongy land saturated or partially covered with water much of the land in that area is mire that cannot be developed Synonyms bog, fen, marsh, marshland, swamp, moor, morass, muskeg, slough (also slew or slue), swampland, wash, wetlandRelated Words swale; quagmire; guck (or gook), muck, mud, ooze, slime, slop, sludge, slush

3 a difficult, puzzling, or embarrassing situation from which there is no easy escape an abused wife who was hopelessly stuck in a mire of emotional dependency Synonyms bind, box, catch-22, corner, dilemma, fix, hole, impasse, jackpot [chiefly West], jam, predicament, pickle, quagmire, rabbit hole, rattrap, spot, sticky wicket, swampRelated Words difficulty, node; hot water, soup; pinch, plight, quandary, scrape, trouble; deadlock, halt, logjam, stalemate, standstill; clutch, crisis, crossroad, emergency, exigency, juncture, strait

1 to make dirty the sight of the standard, which had emerged from the battle mangled and mired, still stirred the soldiers' hearts Synonyms befoul, begrime, bemire, besmirch, blacken, daub, distain [archaic], foul, gaum [dialect], grime, dirty, muck, muddy, smirch, smudge, soil, stain, sullyRelated Words contaminate, defile, pollute, taint; discolor; confuse, disarrange, disarray, dishevel, disorder, draggle, jumble, mess, muddle; colly [chiefly British dialect], crock [dialect]Near Antonyms decontaminate, purge, purify; disinfect, sanitize; brush, dry-clean, dust, launder, mop, rinse, scour, scrub, sweep, wash, wipe; brighten, deodorize, freshen, renew, spruce (up); straighten (up), tidy (up)Antonyms clean, cleanse

2 to place in conflict or difficulties the case has been mired in probate court for years Synonyms bog (down), broil, embrangle, embroilRelated Words enmesh (also immesh), ensnare, ensnarl, entangle, entrap, snare, tangle, trapNear Antonyms emancipate, free, liberate, release