morass

noun

Etymology: From Dutch moeras (“marsh, swamp”), an alteration (with influence from Dutch moer (“moor”)) of a direct descendant of Middle Dutch marasch (“marsh”). The Middle Dutch word is a borrowing from Old French mareis, from Proto-West Germanic *marisk. Doublet of marish and marsh, and linked in part to moor. Compare quagmire.

1. A tract of soft, wet ground; a marsh; a fen.

   “Seven miles to the north of Venice, the banks of sand, which near the city rise little above low-water mark, attain by degrees a higher level, and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass, raised here and there into shapeless mounds, and intercepted by narrow creeks of sea.”

2. Anything that entraps or makes progress difficult.

   “I wrote to Sacramento about that historical marker, and they've been kicking it around their bureaucratic morass for months.”