Pothole, Prairie Pothole, Quag, Quagmire: Origins, Forms, Histories of Words Meaning Marsh, Swamp

The natural features of a region are its topography (Greek topos, "place"). Marshes, swamps, and related areas are important kinds of topographic features.

In the current alphabetic series of terms that refer to such places, here are the origins, forms, and histories of pothole, prairie pothole, quag, and quagmire. The dates of forms and meanings come from the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

Pothole
The word pothole entered English in the 19th century as a simple combination of pot ("rounded vessel") and hole.

The original meaning of pothole is a round hole formed in the rocky bed of a river by the grinding action of stones circulated by the water (1826). Extended senses of the word include a pot-shaped hole in the surface of a road.

Topographically, a pothole is a sizable water-filled depression in the land. In the United States, the most familiar kind of pothole is the prairie pothole, a depressed wetland, typically a freshwater marsh, found mainly in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

That region is pockmarked with potholes from the ancient actions of glaciers. During the spring, water from rain and snowmelt fill the potholes. In a typical pothole, aquatic plants grow in the middle of the pool, bulrushes and cattails characterize the area close to shore, and around the edge of the pothole, separating it from the upland, is a wet, sedgy marsh.

Some prairie pothole marshes are temporary, while others are basically permanent. They serve important regional functions by supporting waterfowl and by reducing the severity of springtime flooding through their absorption of rain, snowmelt, and floodwaters.

Quag
Quag entered English in the 16th century. Its origin is uncertain, but it is probably related to the archaic verb quag ("to quake, quiver, shake").

A quag is a marsh or a bog (1589). The word particularly applies to a marshy or boggy place covered with a layer of turf that shakes or yields when pressure is applied to it.

Quagmire
Quagmire is a combination of the nouns quag ("bog") and mire ("wet spongy earth").

A quagmire is essentially the same as a quag (see quag above), that is, a quaking bog: a piece of soft miry ground that shakes or yields under pressure, as from a footstep (c. 1580).

Extended, quagmire also applies to a usually dry area of land that heavy rains converts into an expanse of soft wet ground. Figuratively, quagmire denotes a difficult, precarious, or entrapping position.
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Encyclopaedia Britannica Ready Reference 2004. CD-ROM. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2004.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2006.

Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary. 3rd ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2007.

The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1989.