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Slough vs Mire - What's the difference?

slough | mire |

As a proper noun slough

is a town in east berkshire, and formerly in buckinghamshire, close to heathrow airport.

As a noun mire is

.

slough

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl), akin to Middle High German ).

Alternative forms

* sluff

Noun

(en noun)
  • The skin shed by a snake or other reptile.
  • That is the slough of a rattler; we must be careful.
  • Dead skin on a sore or ulcer.
  • This is the slough that came off of his skin after the burn.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To shed (skin).
  • This skin is being sloughed .
  • To slide off (like a layer of skin).
  • A week after he was burned, a layer of skin on his arm sloughed off.
  • * 2013 , Casey Watson, Mummy’s Little Helper: The heartrending true story of a young girl :
  • The mud sloughed off her palms easily
  • (card games) To discard.
  • East sloughed a heart.
    Derived terms
    * slough off

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (British) A muddy or marshy area.
  • * 1883' "That comed - as you call it - of being arrant asses," retorted the doctor, "and not having sense enough to know honest air from poison, and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous '''slough . — ''
  • (Eastern United States) A type of swamp or shallow lake system, typically formed as or by the backwater of a larger waterway, similar to a bayou with trees.
  • We paddled under a canopy of trees through the slough .
  • (Western United States) A secondary channel of a river delta, usually flushed by the tide.
  • The contains dozens of sloughs that are often used for water-skiing and fishing.
  • A state of depression.
  • John is in a slough .
  • (Canadian Prairies) A small pond, often alkaline, many but not all are formed by glacial potholes.
  • Potholes or sloughs formed by a glacier’s retreat from the central plains of North America, are now known to be some of the world’s most productive ecosystems.
    Derived terms
    * sloughy * Slough of Despond

    Anagrams

    * English heteronyms

    mire

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) , whence Old English mos (English moss).

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Deep mud; moist, spongy earth.
  • * When Caliban was lazy and neglected his work, Ariel (who was invisible to all eyes but Prospero’s) would come slyly and pinch him, and sometimes tumble him down in the mire .'' (, ''Tales from Shakespeare , Hatier, coll. « Les Classiques pour tous » n° 223, p. 51)
  • An undesirable situation, a predicament.
  • Synonyms
    * (deep mud) peatland, quag
    Hypernyms
    * (deep mud) wetland
    Hyponyms
    * (deep mud) bog, fen
    Derived terms
    * mire crow * mire drum * miry * in the mire * quagmire

    Verb

    (mir)
  • To weigh down.
  • To cause or permit to become stuck in mud; to plunge or fix in mud.
  • to mire a horse or wagon
  • To soil with mud or foul matter.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Smirched thus and mired with infamy.

    Etymology 2

    Perhaps related to Middle Dutch miere (Dutch mier). Cognate with Old Norse maurr, Danish myre. All probably from (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) An ant.
  • Anagrams

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