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Quagmire. World English Historical Dictionary

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Quagmire. World English Historical Dictionary Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Slice Contents Key Bibliographic Record Murray’s New English Dictionary. 1910, rev. 2025. Quagmire [app: f. QUAG sb. or v.1 (but evidenced a little earlier) + MIRE. Numerous synonyms, with a first element of similar form, were in use in the 16th and 17th cents., as qua-, quab-, quad-, quake-, qual-, quave-, quawmire, which will be found in their alphabetical places: cf. also bog-, gog- and wag-mire. The precise relationship of these to each other is not clear: all, or most, may be independent attempts to express the same idea (cf. etym. note to QUAKE v.).]

1   1.  A piece of wet and boggy ground, too soft to sustain the weight of men or the larger animals; a quaking bog; a fen, marsh.

2 1610.  Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, 26. They come to bogs and quagmyres, much like to them in Ireland.

3 1665.  Surv. Aff. Netherl., 120. [Holland is] the greatest Bogg of Europe, and Quagmire of Christendom.

4 1756.  C. Lucas, Ess. Waters, II. 131. The quagmire being pierced … is found no where above two feet deep.

5 1838.  Prescott, Ferd. & Is. (1846), III. xiv. 121. The excessive rains … had converted the whole country into a mere quagmire.

6 1882.  ‘Ouida,’ Maremma, I. 47. To reach the mountain crest without sinking miserably in a quagmire.

7   Comb.  1611.  Cotgr., Mollasse,… quagmire-like.

8   2.  transf. and fig. a. Anything soft, flabby or yielding.

9 1635.  Quarles, Embl., I. xii. (1718), 50. Thy flesh a trembling bog, a quagmire full of humours.

10 a. 1704.  T. Brown, Praise Poverty, Wks. 1730, I. 100. The rich are corpulent, drown’d in foggy quagmires of fat and dropsy.

11 1822–34.  Good’s Study Med. (ed. 4), IV. 483. The indurated patches seem, in some cases, to be fixed upon a quagmire of offensive fluid.

12   b.  A position or situation from which extrication is difficult.

13 1775.  Sheridan, Rivals, III. iv. I have followed Cupid’s Jack-a-lantern, and find my self in a quagmire at last.

14 1851.  Bright, Sp., Eccl. Titles Bill, 12 May. The noble Lord … is in a quagmire, and he knows it well.

15 1873.  Hamerton, Intell. Life, V. ii. (1875), 178. Many a fine intellect has been driven into the deep quagmire.

16   Hence Quagmire v., in pass. to be sunk or stuck in a quagmire; also fig. † Quagmirist, one who makes a quagmire of himself. Quagmiry a., of the nature of a quagmire; boggy.

17 1637.  Winthrop, New Eng. (1825), I. 233. A most hideous swamp, so thick with bushes and so quagmiry [etc.].

18 1655.  R. Younge, Agst. Drunkards, 4. These drunken drones, these gut-mongers, these Quagmirists.

19 1701.  T. Brown, Laconics, 120 (L.). When a Reader has been Quagmir’d in a dull heavy Book,… what a refreshing comfortable sight is it to see F I N I S.

20 1789.  Gloucester Jrnl., 30 Nov., 3/2. Even where the land is not thus flooded, it is so quagmired by the wet weather, that the cattle cannot pasture, and the corn cannot be sown.

21 1846.  Landor, Imag. Conv., Wks. II. 42. A man is never quagmired till he stops.

22 1866.  New Orleans Crescent, 30 Nov., 3/4. The general replied that there was one, but it was very circuitous, and quagmired by the number of army wagons that had passed over it.

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