Link Centre Dictionary

mire

UK/ˈmaɪə/ US/ˈmaɪɚ/ uncommon obsolete rare

noun

1.

verb

1.

entrap

  • “Our people should not be mired in the past”
Synonyms
2.

cause to get stuck as if in a mire

  • “The mud mired our cart”
Synonyms
3.

be unable to move further

  • “The car bogged down in the sand”
4.

soil with mud, muck, or mire

  • “The child mucked up his shirt while playing ball in the garden”

Origin

From Middle English mire, myre, from Old English *mīere, from Proto-West Germanic *miurijā, from Proto-Germanic *miurijǭ (“ant”), from Proto-Indo-European *morwís (“ant”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian miir (“ant”), Dutch mier (“ant”), Low German Miere (“ant”), Danish myre (“ant”), Faroese meyra (“ant”), Icelandic and Norwegian Bokmål maur (“ant”), Norwegian Nynorsk maur, møvver (“ant”), Swedish myra (“ant”), Crimean Gothic miera (“ant”), Finnish muurahainen (“ant”), Ingrian muurahain (“ant”); also Breton merien (“ants”), Cornish moryon (“ants”), Old Irish moirb (“ant”), Welsh mŷr (“ant”), Latin formīca, furmīca (“ant”), Greek μερμήγκι (mermígki), μυρμήγκι (myrmígki, “ant”), Albanian morr (“louse; aphid”), Belarusian мура́шка (muráška, “ant”), Bulgarian мрав (mrav), мра́вка (mrávka, “ant”), Czech brabenec, mravenec (“ant”), Kashubian marwa, mrówka (“ant”), Lower Sorbian mroja (“ant”), Macedonian мра́ва (mráva), мра́вка (mrávka, “ant”), Pannonian Rusyn брамушка (bramuška), ґрамушка (gramuška, “ant”), Polish mrówka (“ant”), Russian мураве́й (muravéj, “ant”), Serbo-Croatian мрав, mrav (“ant”), Slovak mravec (“ant”), Slovene mravlja (“ant”), Ukrainian мура́ха (muráxa, “ant”), ...

Phrases

  • in the mire
  • mire crow
  • mire drum
  • wallow in the mire

Related words

Word family

Narrower terms

Related verbs

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.