Mary Roach
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The Swampy History of Morass
We won't swamp you with details: morass comes from the Dutch word moeras, which itself derives from an Old French word, maresc, meaning “marsh.” Morass has been part of English for centuries, and in its earliest uses was a synonym of swamp or marsh. (That was the sense Robert Louis Stevenson used when he described Long John Silver emerging from “a low white vapour that had crawled during the night out of the morass” in Treasure Island.) Imagine walking through a thick, muddy swamp: it's easy to compare such slogging to an effort to extricate yourself from a sticky situation. By the mid-19th century, morass had gained a figurative sense, and could refer to any predicament that was as murky, confusing, or difficult to navigate as a literal swamp.
Examples of morass in a Sentence
Ray Ravaglia, Forbes.com, 30 May 2025
With the Swiss army closely monitoring the situation, flooding worsened during the day as vast mounds of debris almost two kilometers across clogged the path of the River Lonza, causing a huge lake to form amid the wreckage and raising fears that the morass could dislodge.
—Dave Graham, Christian Science Monitor, 29 May 2025
But if such a deus ex machina does not appear, there’s every reason to fear that Israel will plunge deeper into the morass.
—Gershom Gorenberg, The Atlantic, 9 May 2025
Attempting to sort that out has been a morass of long phone calls on hold and in-person trips seeking an appointment.
—Darius Tahir, Miami Herald, 7 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for morass
Cite this Entry
“Morass.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/morass. Accessed 7 Jun. 2025.
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