Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An area of wet, soggy, muddy ground; a bog.
- noun Deep slimy soil or mud.
- noun A disadvantageous or difficult condition or situation.
- intransitive verb To cause to sink or become stuck in mire.
- intransitive verb To hinder, entrap, or entangle.
- intransitive verb To soil with mud or mire.
- intransitive verb To sink or become stuck in mire.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An ant. See
pismire . - To plunge and fix in mire; set or stall in mud; sink in mud or in a morass.
- To soil or daub with slimy mud or foul matter.
- To sink in mud; especially, to sink so deep as to be unable to move forward; stick in the mud.
- noun Wet, slimy soil of some depth and of yielding consistence; deep mud.
- noun Filth.
- To wonder; admire.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun obsolete An ant.
- transitive verb To cause or permit to stick fast in mire; to plunge or fix in mud.
- transitive verb To stick or entangle; to involve in difficulties; -- often used in the passive or predicate form.
- transitive verb To soil with mud or foul matter.
- noun Deep mud; wet, spongy earth.
- noun (Zoöl.), [Prov. Eng.] the pewit, or laughing gull.
- noun [Prov. Eng.] the European bittern.
- intransitive verb To stick in mire.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun obsolete An
ant . - noun Deep mud; moist,
spongy earth. - noun An undesirable situation, a
predicament . - verb To weigh down.
- verb Cause to become stuck in mud.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun deep soft mud in water or slush
- noun a soft wet area of low-lying land that sinks underfoot
- verb entrap
- verb be unable to move further
- verb cause to get stuck as if in a mire
- noun a difficulty or embarrassment that is hard to extricate yourself from
- verb soil with mud, muck, or mire
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The idea that if we create a fairer more forgiving society with a fully supportive social system the disenfranchised will lift themselves oput of the mire is frankly just not true anymore.
Final Fantasy « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2008
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The king's ministers and the false prophets who misled him. sunk in ... mire -- proverbial for, Thou art involved by "thy friends '" counsels in inextricable difficulties.
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Page 10 to the intoxicating cup for stimulus to artificial excitement, and drowned all seasonable delight in mire, and a poison that not the dumb animals will swallow.
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Even the worst drunks that hang out at the local bar here know that Fox news is a bunch of worn out republican journalist grasping at straws while sinking in mire.
Think Progress » Fox News Slams Colbert: ‘Inappropriate,’ ‘Over the Line,’ ‘Not Very Funny’ 2006
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That men are contented to be as pigs in the mire is the clearest evidence that their crowns and dignities have been burnt away.
The Epistles of St. Peter 1817-1893 1910
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Married, the mire was her portion, whatever she might do.
Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith George Meredith 1868
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Married, the mire was her portion, whatever she might do.
Diana of the Crossways — Volume 2 George Meredith 1868
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Married, the mire was her portion, whatever she might do.
Diana of the Crossways — Complete George Meredith 1868
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With calls for Senator Clinton to abandon what is now seen as little more than a schismatic adventure that risks a fracture along a racial fault-line dividing the Democratic Party just as the Whig Party was fractured by race, some have deduced that the probable motive driving the sinking campaign deeper into the mire is a misplaced belief some attribute to James Carville that they can torpedo Obama's presidential ambitions; survive the disaster of his loss to McCain and prevail as owners of the Democratic Party through the agency of the now discredited Democratic Leadership Council.
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I would argue that this "mire" in which we have so willingly immersed ourselves results from our refusal to use labels.
What is an Atheist? James F. McGrath 2008
bilby commented on the word mire
Re etymological roots, see also mushroom.
April 11, 2018