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swamp

Pronunciation: /ˈswɒmp/

The English word “swamp” has 7 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. An area of wet (water-saturated), spongy (soft) land, often with trees, generally a rich ecosystem for certain plants and animals but ill-suited for many agricultural purposes. (A type of wetland. Compare marsh, bog, fen.)
  2. A place or situation that is foul or where progress is difficult.
  3. The alleged corruption, cronyism, inefficiency, and entrenched interests in the federal government, especially in Washington, DC.

verb

  1. To drench or fill with water.
  2. To overwhelm; to make too busy, or overrun the capacity of.
  3. To plunge into difficulties and perils; to overwhelm; to ruin; to wreck.
  4. To clear (a road or an area) of brush, particularly so as to create a path for loggers to be able to access trees.

Etymology

Early attestations (starting in 1624) are from North America, but the term was probably in local use in Britain earlier. The etymology is not entirely certain; it is probably a fusion of Middle English swam (“swamp, muddy pool, bog, marsh”, also “fungus, mushroom”) — from Old English swamm (“mushroom, fungus, sponge”), from Proto-West Germanic *swamm, from Proto-Germanic *swambaz, *swammaz — and…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.