quicksand

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quick·sand

(kwĭk′sănd′)

1. Sand that is mixed with water in a collected mass and yields easily to pressure so that objects on its surface tend to sink and become engulfed.

2. often quicksands A place or situation into which entry can be swift and sudden but from which extrication can be difficult or impossible: "This theory of the future entrapped [them] in the quicksands of Vietnam" (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.).

[Middle English quyksond, living sand : quick, quyk, living; see quick + sand, sond, sand; see sand.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

quicksand

(ˈkwɪkˌsænd)

(Physical Geography) a deep mass of loose wet sand that submerges anything on top of it

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

quick•sand

(ˈkwɪkˌsænd)

n.

a bed of soft or loose sand saturated with water and having considerable depth, yielding under weight and therefore tending to cause an object resting on its surface to sink.

[1275–1325]

quick′sand′y, adj.

quick·sand

(kwĭk′sănd′)

A deep bed of loose sand mixed with water, forming a soft, shifting mass that yields easily to pressure and tends to swallow objects resting on its surface.

The American Heritage® Student Science Dictionary, Second Edition. Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Noun	1.	quicksand - a treacherous situation that tends to entrap and destroy situation - a complex or critical or unusual difficulty; "the dangerous situation developed suddenly"; "that's quite a situation"; "no human situation is simple"
	2.	quicksand - a pit filled with loose wet sand into which objects are sucked down cavity, pit - a sizeable hole (usually in the ground); "they dug a pit to bury the body" sand - a loose material consisting of grains of rock or coral

Translations

tekutý písek

Treibsand

juoksuhiekka

živi pijesak

sabbie mobili

drijfzand

kvikksand

kvicksand

quicksand

[ˈkwɪksænd] N → arenas fpl movedizas

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

quicksand

[ˈkwɪksænd] n → sables mpl mouvantsquick-setting [ˌkwɪkˈsɛtɪŋ] adj [cement] → à prise rapide; [jelly] → qui prend facilement

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

quicksand

[ˈkwɪkˌsænd] n → sabbie fpl mobili

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

References in classic literature ?

Its depth was from three to six feet, the bottom full of quicksands. The Nebraska is studded with islands covered with that species of poplar called the cotton-wood tree.

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These, with their perplexities and inconsistencies, were the shifting quicksands of my mind, from the time of my departure to the time of my return home, three years afterwards.

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The American will know how to appreciate the importance of this opinion, in relation to the house in question, when he is told that it was written by one of those inspired moralists, and profound constitutional lawyers, and ingenious political economists, who daily teach their fellow creatures how to give practical illustrations of the mandates of the Bible, how to discriminate in vexed questions arising from the national compact, and how to manage their private affairs in such a way as to escape the quicksands that have wrecked their own.

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The width of the river, which was upwards of a mile, its extreme shallowness, the frequency of quicksands, and various other characteristics, had at length made them sensible of their errors with respect to it, and they now came to the correct conclusion, that they were on the banks of the Platte or Shallow River.

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are shallows and quicksands, and rope broken withal, and bucket irrecoverable.

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Changing his battery, he whispered in the ears of a few of his oldest parishioners, that he had been deceived in the state of Middleton's mind, which he was now compelled to believe was completely stranded on the quicksands of heresy.

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Between the two, shifting backwards and forwards at certain seasons of the year, lies the most horrible quicksand on the shores of Yorkshire.

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Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they don't grow naturally; that they import Canada thistles; that they have to send beyond seas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil cask; that pieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true cross in Rome; that people there plant toadstools before their houses, to get under the shade in summer time; that one blade of grass makes an oasis, three blades in a day's walk a prairie; that they wear quicksand shoes, something like Laplander snowshoes; that they are so shut up, belted about, every way inclosed, surrounded, and made an utter island of by the ocean, that to their very chairs and tables small clams will sometimes be found adhering, as to the backs of sea turtles.

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He was sure that since her disappearance from home this great, water-girt city held her somewhere, but it was like a monstrous quicksand, shifting its particles constantly, with no foundation, its upper granules of to-day buried to-morrow in ooze and slime.

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So overboard he goes again, to hunt for another Ararat and find another quicksand. Such has been, and continues to be, my experience.