mire
rhymes with "fire"
Any area of soft, wet, yielding ground — a general term encompassing bogs, fens, marshes, and swamps. To be mired is to be stuck — the word carries the physical experience of sinking into ground that will not hold you. A mire can be a landscape or a condition, a place or a predicament.
Etymology
Old Norse mýrr, a swamp. Related to moss in its northern English and Scandinavian senses (where "moss" can mean a bog or moor). The metaphorical sense — trapped, bogged down — has been in English since at least the 14th century.
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