Meaning & use
marshy wasteland
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Meaning
phrasecountable
An area of wet, soft ground that is not suitable for farming or building and is often considered useless.
Grammar: The phrase acts as a noun. It can be used with 'a' or in the plural: 'a marshy wasteland', 'marshy wastelands'.
Patterns
- a marshy wasteland
- turn something into a marshy wasteland
After the flood, the farmland became a marshy wasteland.
The novel describes a marshy wasteland where nothing grows but reeds.
They drained the marshy wasteland to build new houses.
Word forms
| plural | marshy wastelands |
|---|
Common combinations
- a vast marshy wasteland
- The delta is a vast marshy wasteland during the rainy season.
- turn into a marshy wasteland
- Poor drainage turned the field into a marshy wasteland.
- drain a marshy wasteland
- Engineers drained the marshy wasteland to create farmland.
Synonyms and how they differ
- swamp
- A swamp is a specific type of wetland with trees, while a marshy wasteland is a broader, more negative term for useless wet ground.
- bog
- A bog is an area of wet, spongy ground, often with peat; it may not imply uselessness as strongly as 'wasteland'.
Word family
Commonly confused: marshy wasteland or wetland?
marshy wasteland vs wetland
A wetland is a general term for any wet area, often valuable for wildlife; a marshy wasteland suggests the land is useless or desolate.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'marshy wasteland' correctly?
Choose one answer.
Option 1 is correct because an abandoned industrial area can become wet, useless ground. Option 0 is wrong because a garden of flowers is not a wasteland. Option 2 is wrong because a shopping mall is not marshy. Option 3 is contradictory: a desert is dry, not marshy.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “marshy wasteland”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.