Meaning & use
morass
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Meanings
nouncountablefigurative
A confusing, tangled situation that is hard to get out of or make sense of.
Grammar: Usually singular: a morass of paperwork, a morass of rules.
Patterns
- a morass of something
- sink into a morass
The project sank into a morass of delays and arguments.
She tried to find her way through the morass of tax rules.
The negotiators got stuck in a morass of small disagreements.
nouncountable
A stretch of soft, wet ground, such as a bog or marsh, that is difficult to walk across.
Grammar: Literal and less frequent than the figurative use.
Patterns
- a morass of mud
After the storm, the field turned into a morass that swallowed our boots.
The soldiers struggled across a morass on the edge of the river.
The old road ended at a morass of reeds and black water.
Word forms
| plural | morasses |
|---|
Common combinations
- bureaucratic morass
- Getting a permit meant wading through a bureaucratic morass.
- legal morass
- The inheritance dispute turned into a legal morass.
- morass of details
- The report is lost in a morass of details.
- sink into a morass
- The talks sank into a morass of blame.
- escape the morass
- The new leader promised to help the company escape the morass.
Synonyms and how they differ
- quagmire
- It is very close, but suggests a situation where you are stuck and sinking, often a war or a problem that keeps getting worse.
- mire
- It can mean mud or being stuck in a bad situation, and sounds a little more literary.
- tangle
- It stresses that things are knotted together, not that you are bogged down.
- swamp
- As a noun it is mainly literal, for wet land, and is less common for abstract trouble.
Commonly confused: morass or morose?
morass vs morose
'Morose' is an adjective meaning gloomy and bad-tempered. It begins with the same letters as 'morass' but is not a noun.
Practice
The new employee got lost in a ____ of forms, approvals and signatures.
Choose one answer.
A 'morass of' paperwork means a confusing, hard-to-escape tangle. 'Morsel' is a small piece of food, which does not fit forms and approvals.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “morass”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.