1. A stretch of wet, spongy, swampy ground. An area deep in mud.
2. A troublesome situation a person finds difficult to escape.
3. To get stuck fast in mud.
4. To get muddy.
Etymology
The ancient word “Mire” dates back thousands of years to the Proto-Indo-European, “meus,” meaning damp. Today’s English word, “moss,” is also derived from that word.
Later, in Proto-German, the word became “miuzja,” a bog or marsh. Old Norse transformed the word into “myrr, a bog or swamp. With a slight change in pronunciation, it entered Old English as the noun, “myre.” By the time of Middle English, it had achieved the modern form, “mire.”
Mire was turned into a verb in the 15th and 16th centuries in England. These meanings included getting messy and getting stuck in a difficult situation.
In a Sentence
The little girl got her galoshes mired by playing in the garden during a rainstorm.
We can’t build the garage until we deal with all this muck and mire in the area.
The attractive young woman found herself in a mire of unwanted relationships.
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