Meaning

noun low land that is seasonally flooded; has more woody plants than a marsh and better drainage than a bog

noun a situation fraught with difficulties and imponderables

verb drench or submerge or be drenched or submerged

originEarly attestations (starting in 1624) are from North America, but the term was probably in local use in Britain earlier. The etymology is not entirely certain; it is probably a fusion of Middle English swam (“swamp, muddy pool, bog, marsh”, also “fungus, mushroom”) — from Old English swamm (“mushroom, fungus, sponge”), from Proto-West Germanic *swamm, from Proto-Germanic *swambaz, *swammaz — and…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0