Definition of "mire"

mire¹

/ˈmaɪə/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural mires
1. Deep mud; moist, spongy earth.
2. An undesirable situation, a predicament.
  Quotations
  Swansea seemed to be pulling clear of trouble with five wins in their first eight games following head coach Paul Clement's appointment, but two successive defeats had dragged the Swans back into the mire.
  2017 April 2, Dafydd Pritchard, “Swansea City 0-0 Middlesbrough”, in BBC Sport‎, London
verb
third-person singular simple present mires, present participle miring, simple past and past participle mired
1. (transitive) To cause or permit to become stuck in mud; to plunge or fix in mud.
2. (intransitive) To sink into mud.
3. (transitive, figurative) To weigh down.
4. (intransitive) To soil with mud or foul matter.
  Quotations
  Why had I not with charitable handTook 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’?
  1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene i]

mire²

/ˈmaɪə/

noun
plural mires
1. (rare or obsolete) An ant.
  Quotations
  "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. […] "
  1866, The Gardener's Monthly and Horticultural Advertiser Devoted, page 149
  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.
  1915, Daniel T. Trombley, Batiste of Isle La Motte, page 24
  The ant figures in the Bestiary, which tells us that the 'mire' is mighty; toils much in summer and in soft weather; stores wood and seed, corn and grass; in winter she is not harmed: she likes wheat, but shuns barley […]
  1939, original c. 1300, Publications - Volume 103; Volume 105, page 267