Mary Roach
Did you know?
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
Dominic Patten, Deadline, 10 June 2025
No one felt that way after Game 3’s third-period morass.
—Dave Hyde, Sun Sentinel, 10 June 2025
But the company has built a business around identifying illicit services like digital black markets out of the morass of billions of cryptocurrency addresses.
—Andy Greenberg, Wired News, 5 June 2025
For years, Marvel films worked this jocular-fantastic angle, in pointed contrast to the grimdark expectorations of their DC counterparts, who were drowning in a morass of runaway budgets and brooding slo-mo.
—Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 14 Mar. 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 19 Jun. 2025.
Copy Citation
Share