quagmire的词源

英文词源

quagmire: quagmire: [16] The now virtually defunct word quag denoted a ‘marsh’, particularly one with a top layer of turf that moved when you trod on it. Combination with mire (which also originally meant ‘marsh’, and is related to English moss) produced quagmire. It is not known where quag came from, but its underlying meaning is generally taken to be ‘shake, tremble’, and it may ultimately be of imitative origin.
quagmire (n.): 1570s, "bog, marsh," from obsolete quag "bog, marsh" + mire (n.). Early spellings include quamyre (1550s), quabmire (1590s), quadmire (c. 1600). Extended sense of "difficult situation, inescapable bad position" is recorded by 1766; but this seems to have been not in common use in much of 19c. (absent in "Century Dictionary," 1902), but revived in a narrower sense in reference to military invasions in American English, 1965, with reference to Vietnam (popularized in the book title "The Making of a Quagmire" by David Halberstam).

quag,泥沼，mire,沼泽。两个单词实质上表达的是一个意思，比较lukewarm.

该词的英语词源请访问找单词词源英文版：quagmire 词源，quagmire 含义。