"knee-deep in the Big Muddy" meaning in English

{
  "etymology_text": "From Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, a 1967 folk song by Pete Seeger, protesting the war in Vietnam.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "adjective",
        "head": "knee-deep in the Big Muddy"
      },
      "expansion": "knee-deep in the Big Muddy",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1994 September 16, Cal Thomas, “Clinton should heed Gore advice”, in New York Daily News, retrieved 2010-01-04",
          "text": "Polls show three-quarters of the people don't want us to invade Haiti. Nonetheless, it appears we're about to go knee-deep in the Big Muddy.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002 July 16, Edward Iwata, “Enron faces 'hornet's nest' of charges”, in USA Today, retrieved 2010-01-04",
          "text": "The 40-year-old Fastow, a hot-tempered financial whiz, engineered the controversial partnerships that led to Enron's meltdown. . . . \"He's knee-deep in the big muddy,\" Meagher says.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Janice Langan-Fox et al., Research Companion to the Dysfunctional Workplace, page 142",
          "text": "In the classic ‘knee deep in the Big Muddy’ scenario (Staw, 1976), individuals continue to contribute to a losing cause long after it is clear that this is a tremendous waste of money.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Stuck in a predicament; mired in a difficult situation, especially one resulting from poor judgment or bad leadership."
      ],
      "id": "en-knee-deep_in_the_Big_Muddy-en-adj-psE4DI9h",
      "links": [
        [
          "Stuck",
          "stuck"
        ],
        [
          "predicament",
          "predicament"
        ],
        [
          "mire",
          "mire"
        ],
        [
          "judgment",
          "judgment"
        ],
        [
          "leadership",
          "leadership"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly US, idiomatic) Stuck in a predicament; mired in a difficult situation, especially one resulting from poor judgment or bad leadership."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "bogged down"
        },
        {
          "word": "waist-deep in the Big Muddy"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-knee-deep in the Big Muddy.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e3/En-au-knee-deep_in_the_Big_Muddy.ogg/En-au-knee-deep_in_the_Big_Muddy.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/En-au-knee-deep_in_the_Big_Muddy.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "knee-deep in the Big Muddy"
}

{
  "etymology_text": "From Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, a 1967 folk song by Pete Seeger, protesting the war in Vietnam.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "adjective",
        "head": "knee-deep in the Big Muddy"
      },
      "expansion": "knee-deep in the Big Muddy",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "English adjectives",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1994 September 16, Cal Thomas, “Clinton should heed Gore advice”, in New York Daily News, retrieved 2010-01-04",
          "text": "Polls show three-quarters of the people don't want us to invade Haiti. Nonetheless, it appears we're about to go knee-deep in the Big Muddy.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002 July 16, Edward Iwata, “Enron faces 'hornet's nest' of charges”, in USA Today, retrieved 2010-01-04",
          "text": "The 40-year-old Fastow, a hot-tempered financial whiz, engineered the controversial partnerships that led to Enron's meltdown. . . . \"He's knee-deep in the big muddy,\" Meagher says.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Janice Langan-Fox et al., Research Companion to the Dysfunctional Workplace, page 142",
          "text": "In the classic ‘knee deep in the Big Muddy’ scenario (Staw, 1976), individuals continue to contribute to a losing cause long after it is clear that this is a tremendous waste of money.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Stuck in a predicament; mired in a difficult situation, especially one resulting from poor judgment or bad leadership."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Stuck",
          "stuck"
        ],
        [
          "predicament",
          "predicament"
        ],
        [
          "mire",
          "mire"
        ],
        [
          "judgment",
          "judgment"
        ],
        [
          "leadership",
          "leadership"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly US, idiomatic) Stuck in a predicament; mired in a difficult situation, especially one resulting from poor judgment or bad leadership."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-knee-deep in the Big Muddy.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e3/En-au-knee-deep_in_the_Big_Muddy.ogg/En-au-knee-deep_in_the_Big_Muddy.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/En-au-knee-deep_in_the_Big_Muddy.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "bogged down"
    },
    {
      "word": "waist-deep in the Big Muddy"
    }
  ],
  "word": "knee-deep in the Big Muddy"
}