quicksand
Part of speech: noun
A bed of sand so water- soaked as readily to engulf any person or animal that attempts to rest upon it.
Part of speech: adjective
Quicksighted.
Usage examples "quicksand":
- Even had he thought enough about the matter to admit that certain untoward conditions might have to be met, he would have failed to realize that the shore towards which he was struggling might prove in the end a quicksand. - "Flamsted quarries", Mary E. Waller.
- The world is a quicksand. - "Foul Play", Charles Reade Dion Boucicault.
- Without a strong aversion to change its habits and, with its habits, the pabulum of its mind, there would be no fixity of type in any species and, indeed, there would be no life at all, as we are accustomed to think of life, for organs would disappear before they could be developed, and to try to build life on such a shifting foundation would be as hopeless as it would be to try and build a material building on an actual quicksand. - "The Note-Books of Samuel Butler", Samuel Butler.
