fever-swamp

English

Noun

fever-swamp (plural fever-swamps)

1. Alternative form of fever swamp
   1. Disease-ridden swamp.
      • 1974, Lin Carter, The valley where time stood still, page 31:

        Think of it as the Martian equivalent of the Fountain of Youth, which that grizzled and gullible old soldier-of-fortune, Ponce de Leon, once searched for in the fever-swamps of Florida, and you will not be far off the mark.

      • 2006, Hugh Cook, The Worshippers and the Way, →ISBN, page 260:

        It was so hot in this fever-swamp that his water requirements would be prodigious.

      • 2007, Matilda Houstoun, Hesperos - Volume 2, →ISBN, page 42:

        And now we were fairly on the bosom of the 'mighty' Mississippi, that largest, and ugliest, and most tremendous of rivers ; tremendous through the force of its resistless currents, and the fever-swamps that spread their noxious vapours over its surface.

   2. Group of political extremists.
      • 2017 February 21, Heather Yakin, “Our Muslim neighbors are being targeted with violent threats”, in Times Herald-Record:

        The community has been the focus of the fever-swamp for years, with pundits insisting it's a terrorist training camp.

   3. Extreme political positions.
      • 2014, John Avlon, Wingnuts: Extremism in the Age of Obama, →ISBN, page 252:

        Among those caught up in the fever-swamp was Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush's two White House wins.

Usage notes

In most cases, the political uses of this term do not make use of the hyphenated form except for attributive uses such as "fever-swamp conspiracy theories".