Definition of "quagmire" []

• Land with a soft muddy surface. (noun)
• A difficult or precarious situation; a predicament. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "To call recent storylines a quagmire would cause me to go look up ‘quagmire‘ and make sure I’m using it correctly “a difficult, precarious, or entrapping position”, yeah he’s had a few of those."
• "HEUVEL: John McCain is -- gives new meaning to the term quagmire as a warmonger, has an 82 percent American Conservative Union rating."
• "Long before the word quagmire was applied to Vietnam, Mark Twain used it to describe America's Philippines entanglement, which he vigorously opposed."