mire

name

1. A surname.

noun

Etymology: From Middle English mire, from Old English *mȳre, *mīere, from Proto-West Germanic *miurijā, from Proto-Germanic *miurijǭ (“ant”). Cognate to Old Norse maurr, Danish myre, Middle Dutch miere (“ant”) (Dutch mier). All probably from Proto-Indo-European *morwi- (“ant”), whence also cognate to Latin formīca.

1. An ant.

   “"Having been seriously interrupted by small brown ants or mires working in my cutting bench, digging holes down the side of my cuttings, thereby arresting the process of rooting. […]"”

   “Wen I lay down behine dat log I plunk masef right een one dem aunty mire nest an bout 10 million of dem leetle devil begin to heat me.”

verb

Etymology: From Middle English mire, a borrowing from Old Norse mýrr, from Proto-Germanic *miuzijō, whence also Swedish myr, Norwegian myr, Icelandic mýri, Dutch *mier (in placenames, for example Mierlo). Related to Proto-Germanic *meusą, whence Old English mēos, and Proto-Germanic *musą, whence Old English mos (English moss).

1. To cause or permit to become stuck in mud; to plunge or fix in mud.

   “to mire a horse or wagon”

2. To sink into mud.
3. To weigh down.
4. To soil with mud or foul matter.

   “Why had I not with charitable hand Took up a beggar’s issue at my gates, Who smirch’d thus and mired with infamy, I might have said ‘No part of it is mine; This shame derives itself from unknown loins’?”