Mary Roach
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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 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 an effort to extricate 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.
Examples of morass in a Sentence
Paul A. Thompson, Pitchfork, 27 June 2025
Tax administration is often written off as a bureaucratic morass—a neutral, technocratic function made necessary by the modern state but best kept as small as possible.
—Andrew Leahey, Forbes.com, 25 June 2025
Voices Granderson: For Dodgers, the fight against racial injustice is driven by the past and present
July 23, 2020
Besides, the Dodgers have waded into political morasses before.
—Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 21 June 2025
The official hauling of Justin Bieber’s former manager into the Lively vs. Baldoni morass comes as the Jane the Virgin actor’s main lawyer and the NYT offered very different takeaways today of what the dismissal of Baldoni’s countersuit against his IEWU co-star really means.
—Dominic Patten, Deadline, 10 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for morass
Cite this Entry
“Morass.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/morass. Accessed 2 Jul. 2025.
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