What does miry mean?
Miry is an adjective for ground, roads, fields, or other places that are muddy, swampy, or boggy. It suggests more than ordinary dampness: the surface is saturated with mud, making it difficult or unpleasant to walk or travel across. Typical expressions include miry ground and miry path, and the word frequently appears in literary descriptions of countryside, weather, and arduous journeys. Although it can be used in neutral factual contexts, miry often carries a picturesque or slightly old-fashioned tone. Its usefulness lies in its ability to convey the texture and difficulty of mud in a single word, especially when describing terrain that has been transformed by heavy rain or poor drainage.
adjectiveMiry means covered or filled with mud; boggy, swampy, or muddy. It is chiefly literary and is often used to describe difficult, wet ground.
- Covered with or consisting of mud.
- Boggy, swampy, or difficult to travel through because of wet ground.
"After several days of rain, the path through the fields became a miry expanse of mud."
"The horses struggled along the miry road after the storm."
"Rain had left the meadow miry and impassable."
Miry captures the moment when a path stops being merely wet and becomes a struggle through mud.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does miry come from?
Miry comes through Middle English from a word meaning muddy or slimy, with roots in Old English. The development reflects the word's long association with wet, muddy ground. It is closely related to mire, which names a swampy or muddy place.
Related word forms
How miry is actually used
Chiefly literary and somewhat old-fashioned. It is more common in formal writing, poetry, and descriptions of rural or difficult terrain than in everyday modern speech. The word often conveys both physical wetness and the difficulty or unpleasantness of moving through mud.
Easily confused with miry
A mire is a swampy or muddy place, whereas miry is an adjective describing ground or an area that is muddy, boggy, or difficult to traverse.