quagmireyoudaoicibaDictYouDict[quagmire 词源字典]
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 etymology, quagmire origin, 英语词源]
quagmire (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
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).