Definition of "mire" []

• An area of wet, soggy, muddy ground; a bog. (noun)
• Deep slimy soil or mud. (noun)
• A disadvantageous or difficult condition or situation: the mire of poverty. (noun)
• To cause to sink or become stuck in or as if in mire. (verb-transitive)
• To hinder, entrap, or entangle as if in mire. (verb-transitive)

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.

• "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."
• "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."
• "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."