Multiple choice

Directions: Choose appropriate meaning of the words in bold as per their contextual use.

The country had gotten itself into a quagmire with this apparently unwinnable war.

  1. financial trouble

  2. puzzlement

  3. entanglement

  4. marsh

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Quagmire literally means a soft boggy area of land, but metaphorically means a complex, difficult, or precarious situation from which it's hard to extricate oneself. An unwinnable war creates exactly this kind of entanglement. Financial trouble (A) is too specific, puzzlement (B) is mental confusion, and marsh (D) is only the literal meaning.