morass

From Dutch moeras (“marsh, swamp”), an alteration (with influence from Dutch moer (“moor”)) of a direct descendant of Middle Dutch marasch (“marsh”). The Middle Dutch word is a borrowing from Old French mareis, from Proto-West Germanic *marisk. Doublet of marish and marsh, and linked in part to moor. Compare quagmire.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /məˈɹæs/, /moˈɹæs/

• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -æs

morass (plural morasses)

1. A tract of soft, wet ground; a marsh; a fen.
   • 1853, John Ruskin, “Torcello”, in The Stones of Venice, volume II (The Sea-Stories), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, § I, page 11:

     Seven miles to the north of Venice, the banks of sand, which near the city rise little above low-water mark, attain by degrees a higher level, and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass, raised here and there into shapeless mounds, and intercepted by narrow creeks of sea.

2. (figurative) Anything that entraps or makes progress difficult.
   • 1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 4, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 67:

     I wrote to Sacramento about that historical marker, and they've been kicking it around their bureaucratic morass for months.

• morass-ore
• morass-weed
• morassy