1
: wet spongy earth (as of a bog or marsh)
the mire is relieved only by small stretches of open dry forest—
Saturday Review
Saturday Review2
: heavy often deep mud or slush
The troops trudged onward through the mire.
3
: a troublesome or intractable situation
found themselves in a mire of debt
mired; miring
1
a
: to cause to stick fast in or as if in mire
The car was mired in the muck.
b
: to hamper or hold back as if by mire : entangle
The company has been mired in legal problems.
2
: to cover or soil with mire
his mired boots
: to stick or sink in mire
a road in which horses and wagons mired regularly—Edmund Arnold
Edmund ArnoldSynonyms
Examples of mire in a Sentence
Noun
The troops marched onward through the muck and the mire.
played on a football field that was thick with mire
Verb
the sight of the standard, which had emerged from the battle mangled and mired, still stirred the soldiers' hearts
the case has been mired in probate court for years
Recent Examples on the WebBloomberg News, TIME, 11 Apr. 2024
Infusion of local and federal dollars into transit and housing
At the start of 2023, the county faced looming fiscal cliffs, with some departments, including transit, already sinking into a financial mire.
—Journal Sentinel, 19 Mar. 2024
Emily Goodstein, a small-business owner in D.C., similarly views the bed, in particular, as a pristine place that should remain separate from the mire of the outside world.
—Rachel Kurzius, Washington Post, 11 Jan. 2024
Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto Apparently the swamp in Washington, D.C., is not a political but a bureaucratic mire.
—Mark P. Mills, WSJ, 8 Aug. 2023
That suited corporate arts funders, who didn’t have to worry about stepping into a political mire.
—Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 7 Sep. 2023
Some were tasked with pulling electrical cords out of the mire while others attempted to tidy up the bedlam.
—Morena Duwe, Los Angeles Times, 10 Sep. 2023
Bloom’s methodical, risk-averse approach to roster-building as chief baseball officer represented a potential impediment to the Red Sox emerging from the mire of mediocrity.
—Alex Speier, BostonGlobe.com, 15 Sep. 2023
Most people who have been in the mire of heartbreak will have felt pain in their body somewhere.
—Eleanor Morgan, refinery29.com, 13 July 2023
Adrienne So, WIRED, 17 Apr. 2024
In Italy, the company has been mired for weeks in a controversy with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government due to plans to reduce headcount and shift production of electric vehicles to lower-cost countries such as Poland.
—Albertina Torsoli, Fortune Europe, 16 Apr. 2024
But the last several months have been mired by higher education woes, such as the Supreme Court's gutting of affirmative action last year and President Joe Biden's initial student debt relief plan introduced in 2022 (and struck down by the Supreme Court last year).
—Arthur Jones Ii, ABC News, 11 Apr. 2024
Domestically, Kishida’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party has been mired in problems, including a massive political fundraising scandal that threatens his future as prime minister.
—Michelle Lee, Washington Post, 9 Apr. 2024
In more recent years, the position has been mired in election conspiracies.
—Sasha Hupka, The Arizona Republic, 8 Apr. 2024
Today, educators are mired in trying to fix the learning loss that came with the pandemic.
—Peter Georgescu, Forbes, 29 Mar. 2024
The company has been mired in a slew of negative stories since a door panel blew out on a Boeing 737 Max plane flown by Alaska Airlines in January.
—Patrick Smith, NBC News, 26 Mar. 2024
The planet was Venus, and the claim about a potential biosignature in the Venusian sky is still mired in controversy, even years later.
—Elise Cutts, WIRED, 7 Apr. 2024
Noun
The country endured a major respiratory disease outbreak in 2023 after pulling itself out of the Covid mire in late 2022, well after other nations had thrown open their borders and allowed pathogens to resume their traditional circulation patterns.
—Bloomberg News, TIME, 11 Apr. 2024
Infusion of local and federal dollars into transit and housing
At the start of 2023, the county faced looming fiscal cliffs, with some departments, including transit, already sinking into a financial mire.
—Journal Sentinel, 19 Mar. 2024
Emily Goodstein, a small-business owner in D.C., similarly views the bed, in particular, as a pristine place that should remain separate from the mire of the outside world.
—Rachel Kurzius, Washington Post, 11 Jan. 2024
Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto Apparently the swamp in Washington, D.C., is not a political but a bureaucratic mire.
—Mark P. Mills, WSJ, 8 Aug. 2023
That suited corporate arts funders, who didn’t have to worry about stepping into a political mire.
—Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 7 Sep. 2023
Some were tasked with pulling electrical cords out of the mire while others attempted to tidy up the bedlam.
—Morena Duwe, Los Angeles Times, 10 Sep. 2023
Bloom’s methodical, risk-averse approach to roster-building as chief baseball officer represented a potential impediment to the Red Sox emerging from the mire of mediocrity.
—Alex Speier, BostonGlobe.com, 15 Sep. 2023
Most people who have been in the mire of heartbreak will have felt pain in their body somewhere.
—Eleanor Morgan, refinery29.com, 13 July 2023
Verb
As the consternation over the high-cut briefs shows, the company has been mired in other accusations of sexism.
—Adrienne So, WIRED, 17 Apr. 2024
In Italy, the company has been mired for weeks in a controversy with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government due to plans to reduce headcount and shift production of electric vehicles to lower-cost countries such as Poland.
—Albertina Torsoli, Fortune Europe, 16 Apr. 2024
But the last several months have been mired by higher education woes, such as the Supreme Court's gutting of affirmative action last year and President Joe Biden's initial student debt relief plan introduced in 2022 (and struck down by the Supreme Court last year).
—Arthur Jones Ii, ABC News, 11 Apr. 2024
Domestically, Kishida’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party has been mired in problems, including a massive political fundraising scandal that threatens his future as prime minister.
—Michelle Lee, Washington Post, 9 Apr. 2024
In more recent years, the position has been mired in election conspiracies.
—Sasha Hupka, The Arizona Republic, 8 Apr. 2024
Today, educators are mired in trying to fix the learning loss that came with the pandemic.
—Peter Georgescu, Forbes, 29 Mar. 2024
The company has been mired in a slew of negative stories since a door panel blew out on a Boeing 737 Max plane flown by Alaska Airlines in January.
—Patrick Smith, NBC News, 26 Mar. 2024
The planet was Venus, and the claim about a potential biosignature in the Venusian sky is still mired in controversy, even years later.
—Elise Cutts, WIRED, 7 Apr. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mire.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Mire.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mire. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
mire
2 of 2 verb
mired; miring
1
a
: to sink or stick fast in mire
b
2
: to soil with mud or slush
Medical Definition
mire
noun
: any of the objects on the arm of an ophthalmometer that are used to measure astigmatism by the reflections they produce in the cornea when illuminated
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