morass
English
editEtymology
editFrom Dutch moeras (“marsh, swamp”), from Middle Dutch marasch (“marsh”), from Old French mareis, from Proto-West Germanic *marisk. Doublet of marish and marsh.
Pronunciation
editNoun
editmorass (plural morasses)
- 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.
- (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.
Derived terms
editTranslations
edittract of soft, wet ground
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- en:Landforms
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- en:Wetlands