From Middle English mire, a borrowing from Old Norse mýrr, from Proto-Germanic *miuzijō, whence also Swedish myr, Norwegian myr, Icelandic mýri, Dutch *mier (in placenames, for example Mierlo). Related to Proto-Germanic *meusą, whence Old English mēos, and Proto-Germanic *musą, whence Old English mos (English moss).
Meanings
(countable, uncountable) Deep mud; moist, spongy earth.
Sow ran and squall'd,
While Jack he bawl'd,
And Jill join'd in the choir,
Dog Ball being near,
Bit sow by the ear,
And threw Jack into the mire. 1810, Jack and Jill, and old Dame Gill, York: J. Kendrew, page 12:
His laden feet sand and stuck in mire; he was bedaubed with the blue-gray clay from head to foot; but he had escaped the deadly river! 1872, Edward Everett Hale, Old and New, page 350:
(countable, uncountable) A bog or fen; (in wetland science, specifically) a peatland which is actively forming peat, such as an active bog or fen.
Glagolev […] measured CH₄ emission from a mire in West Siberia using a static chamber method. Similar methods had been developed and tested by Nakano et al. (2006), Fig. 1. 2015 November 15, Lothar Mueller, Askhad K. Sheudshen, Frank Eulenstein, Novel Methods for Monitoring and Managing Land and Water Resources in Siberia, Springer, →ISBN, page 79:
(countable, uncountable) An undesirable situation; a predicament.
Swansea seemed to be pulling clear of trouble with five wins in their first eight games following head coach Paul Clement's appointment, but two successive defeats had dragged the Swans back into the mire. 2017 April 2, Dafydd Pritchard, “Swansea City 0-0 Middlesbrough”, in BBC Sport, London:
From Middle English mire, a borrowing from Old Norse mýrr, from Proto-Germanic *miuzijō, whence also Swedish myr, Norwegian myr, Icelandic mýri, Dutch *mier (in placenames, for example Mierlo). Related to Proto-Germanic *meusą, whence Old English mēos, and Proto-Germanic *musą, whence Old English mos (English moss).
Meanings
(transitive) To cause or permit to become stuck in mud; to plunge or fix in mud.
to mire a horse or wagon
(intransitive) To sink into mud.
(figuratively, transitive) To weigh down.
(intransitive) To soil with mud or foul matter.
Why had I not with charitable hand
Took up a beggar’s issue at my gates,
Who smirch’d thus and mired with infamy,
I might have said ‘No part of it is mine;
This shame derives itself from unknown loins’? 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
tr çamura batmak (to sink into mud) · oc baldracar (to sink into mud) · mi tapoko (to sink into mud) · oc s'enfangar (to sink into mud) · es atollar (figurative) · es envolver (figurative) · ru погрязнуть (to sink into mud) · oc gaulhassar (to sink into mud) · cs zabřednout do bahna (to sink into mud) · fr enliser (to sink into mud) · tr çamura batırmak (to plunge or fix in mud) · oc baudracar (to sink into mud) · es empantanar (to plunge or fix in mud) · es empantanar (figurative) · fr embourber (to sink into mud) · oc fangassejar (to sink into mud) · bg окалям (to sink into mud) · oc baldrejar (to sink into mud) · cs zapadnout do bláta (to sink into mud) · de einsinken (to sink into mud) · de feststecken (to plunge or fix in mud) · oc fanguejar (to sink into mud) · es empantanarse (to sink into mud)
From Middle English mire, myre, from Old English *mīere, from Proto-West Germanic *miurijā, from Proto-Germanic *miurijǭ (“ant”), from Proto-Indo-European *morwís (“ant”).
Cognates
Cognate with North Frisian miir (“ant”), Dutch mier (“ant”), Low German Miere (“ant”), Danish myre (“ant”), Faroese meyra (“ant”), Icelandic and Norwegian Bokmål maur (“ant”), Norwegian Nynorsk maur, møvver (“ant”), Swedish myra (“ant”), Crimean Gothic miera (“ant”), Finnish muurahainen (“ant”), Ingrian muurahain (“ant”); also Breton merien (“ants”), Cornish moryon (“ants”), Old Irish moirb (“ant”), Welsh mŷr (“ant”), Latin formīca, furmīca (“ant”), Greek μερμήγκι (mermígki), μυρμήγκι (myrmígki, “ant”), Albanian morr (“louse; aphid”), Belarusian мура́шка (muráška, “ant”), Bulgarian мрав (mrav), мра́вка (mrávka, “ant”), Czech brabenec, mravenec (“ant”), Kashubian marwa, mrówka (“ant”), Lower Sorbian mroja (“ant”), Macedonian мра́ва (mráva), мра́вка (mrávka, “ant”), Pannonian Rusyn брамушка (bramuška), ґрамушка (gramuška, “ant”), Polish mrówka (“ant”), Russian мураве́й (muravéj, “ant”), Serbo-Croatian мрав, mrav (“ant”), Slovak mravec (“ant”), Slovene mravlja (“ant”), Ukrainian мура́ха (muráxa, “ant”), Upper Sorbian mrowja (“ant”), Armenian մրջյուն (mrǰyun, “ant”), Baluchi مور (mor, “ant”), Central Kurdish مێروو (mêrû), مێروولە (mêrûle, “ant”), Northern Kurdish mûrî (“ant”), Ossetian мӕлдзыг (mælʒyg, “ant”), Persian مور (mōr / mur, “ant”), مورچه (mōrča / murče, “ant; hole; trench”), Sanskrit वम्र (vamra, “ant”).
Meanings
(obsolete, rare) An ant.
Wen I lay down behine dat log I plunk masef right een one dem aunty mire nest an bout 10 million of dem leetle devil begin to heat me. 1915, Daniel T. Trombley, Batiste of Isle La Motte, page 24:
"Having been seriously interrupted by small brown ants or mires working in my cutting bench, digging holes down the side of my cuttings, thereby arresting the process of rooting. […]" 1866, The Gardener's Monthly and Horticultural Advertiser Devoted, page 149:
The ant figures in the Bestiary, which tells us that the 'mire' is mighty; toils much in summer and in soft weather; stores wood and seed, corn and grass; in winter she is not harmed: she likes wheat, but shuns barley […] 1939, original c. 1300, Publications - Volume 103; Volume 105, page 267: