quaggy

See also: Quaggy

English

Alternative forms

• quoggy

Etymology

From quag +‎ -y.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkwɒɡi/

Adjective

quaggy (comparative quaggier, superlative quaggiest)

1. Resembling a quagmire; marshy, miry.
   • 1818, Asiatick Society, Asiatick Researches:

     English oxen would be much distressed and frightened in such quaggy soil.

   • 1969, Nandu Singh, S N Avdhut, Dayal Yoga:

     Man has to feel his way most cautiously in the quaggy soil of ignorance, suspense, superstition and moral darkness.

2. Soft or flabby (of a person etc.).
   • 1748, Samuel Richardson, Clarissa:

     Behold her then, spreading the whole troubled bed with her huge quaggy carcase: Her mill-post arms held up; her broad hands clenched with violence […] .

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter XXV, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 124:

     In truth, a mature man who uses hair-oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere.

Synonyms

• (resembling a quagmire): moorish, paludal, syrtic; see also Thesaurus:marshy