quagmire

1. (figuratively) A perilous, mixed up and troubled situation; a hopeless tangle.Examples: "The paperwork got lost in a quagmire of bureaucracy."; "Those election results are a quagmire for any coalition except one of national union."; ""And what was this, my beloved brother, but a vain yielding to unbridled imagination, which, like a spring confined to one spot, collects its pure clear waters, and in at once a beauty and a blessing; but which, allowed to spread abroad in every direction, oozes through the marshy earth, becomes stagnant, and is habited by the loathsome reptile. That which would have been a green haunt, with its fair fountain, is a dreary and useless quagmire. Is it not thus with the mind, Guido?""Synonyms: predicament, ass in a sling, bind, bucket of syrup, calvary, cross, cross to bear, difficultyfiguratively