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Fine Dictionary

mess

mɛs
WordNet
Interesting fact
It was the left shoe that Aschenputtel (Cinderella) lost at the stairway, when the prince tried to follow her. It was originally the right, but the translator messed up again.
  1. (v) mess
    make a mess of or create disorder in "He messed up his room"
  2. (v) mess
    eat in a mess hall
  3. (n) mess
    a (large) military dining room where service personnel eat or relax
  4. (n) mess
    a meal eaten in a mess hall by service personnel
  5. (n) mess
    soft semiliquid food "a mess of porridge"
  6. (n) mess
    (often followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent "a batch of letters","a deal of trouble","a lot of money","he made a mint on the stock market","see the rest of the winners in our huge passel of photos","it must have cost plenty","a slew of journalists","a wad of money"
  7. (n) mess
    informal terms for a difficult situation "he got into a terrible fix","he made a muddle of his marriage"
  8. (n) mess
    a state of confusion and disorderliness "the house was a mess","she smoothed the mussiness of the bed"
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
  1. Mess
    A disagreeable mixture or confusion of things; hence, a situation resulting from blundering or from misunderstanding; as, he made a mess of it.
  2. Mess
    A set of four; -- from the old practice of dividing companies into sets of four at dinner.
  3. Mess
    mĕs Mass; church service.
  4. Mess
    The milk given by a cow at one milking.
  5. Mess
    To make a mess{5} of; to disorder or muddle; to muss; to jumble; to disturb; to mess up. "It was n't right either to be messing another man's sleep."
  6. Mess
    To supply with a mess.
  7. Mess
    To take meals with a mess; to belong to a mess; to eat (with others); as, I mess with the wardroom officers.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
  1. (n) mess
    A supply or provision of anything to be eaten at one meal; a quantity of food sufficient for one or more persons for a single occasion: as, a mess of peas for dinner; a mess of oats for a horse.
  2. (n) mess
    In fishing, the amount or number of fish taken; the take or haul of fish.
  3. (n) mess
    A number of persons who eat together at the same table; especially, a group of officers or men in the army or navy who regularly take their meals in company.
  4. (n) mess
    A set of four; any group of four persons or things: originally as a convenient subdivision of a numerous company at dinner, a practice still maintained in the London inns of court.
  5. mess
    To share a mess; eat in company with others or as a member of a mess; take a meal with any other person: as, I will mess with you to-day.
  6. mess
    To supply with a mess: as, to mess cattle.
  7. mess
    To sort in messes for the table, as meat.
  8. (n) mess
    A disorderly mixture or jumble of things; a state of dirt and disorder: as, the house was in a mess.
  9. (n) mess
    A situation of confusion, disorder, or embarrassment; a muddle: as, to get one's self into a mess.
  10. mess
    To make a mess of; disorder, soil, or dirty.
  11. mess
    To muddle; throw into confusion: as, he messes the whole business.
  12. (n) mess
    An obsolete form of mass
  13. mess
    Mass. See by the mass, under mass.
  14. (n) mess
    An obsolete form of mace.
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
  1. (n) Mess
    mes a mixture disagreeable to the sight or taste: a medley: disorder: confusion
  2. (v.t) Mess
    to make a mess of: to muddle
  3. (n) Mess
    mes a dish or quantity of food served up at one time: a number of persons who take their meals together at the same table, esp. in the army and navy: the take of fish at one time
  4. (v.t) Mess
    to supply with a mess
  5. (v.i) Mess
    to eat of a mess: to eat at a common table
  6. (n) Mess
    mes =mass
Quotations
Loretta Lynn
My attitude toward men who mess around is simple: If you find 'em, kill 'em.
Loretta Lynn
Francis Ford Coppola
I bring to my life a certain amount of mess.
Francis Ford Coppola
Samuel Beckett
To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now.
Samuel Beckett
Life isn't like a book. Life isn't logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.
Charles Caleb Colton
What's right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity, intellect and resources -- to do something about them.
Henry Ford
Ronald Reagan
Status quo, you know, that is Latin for the mess we're in.
Ronald Reagan
Idioms

Mess with a bull, you get the horns - If you do something stupid or dangerous, you can get hurt.

Sell your birthright for a mess of pottage - If a person sells their birthright for a mess of pottage, they accept some trivial financial or other gain, but lose something much more important. 'Sell your soul for a mess of pottage' is an alternative form.

Etymology

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary OE. mes, OF. mets, LL. missum, p. p. of mittere, to put, place (e. g., on the table), L. mittere, to send. See Mission, and cf. Mass religious service

Usage in the news

Sandy makes a mess, leaving East Coast dazed, confused by storm. commercialappeal.com

A whole mess of the Murphys. metro.us

The Buell is a filthy mess. ridermagazine.com

El Dorado Hills Boulevard turned intoa soggy mess Wednesday evening when a water main in the median broke. villagelife.com

Don't mess with the Electoral College . denverpost.com

Reason why his nose is so messed up is because of his massive cocaine use. mee.com

Sometimes little mistakes leave a big mess. oprah.com

The Dallas dining scene, summer's most sizzling accessory and one big, hot mess — just a few items included in our HOT August rundown. dallasnews.com

Sure, they mess with the movie and poke fun at it. froggy103.com

Kohl pencils can smudge easily and liquid—for those of us with a shaky hand—can result in looking like a hot mess. fitnessmagazine.com

Kevin Federline owes big bucks after leaving a big mess. msnbc.msn.com

As any Evil Dead fan should know, it's dangerous to mess with ancient texts. slate.com

The singer, who performed in Los Angeles Monday, is called "entertaining" and "a mess pretty much from start to finish.". hollywoodreporter.com

Don't Mess – I am RAD. montereycountyweekly.com

What a mess the Christmas blizzard made here in northwest Iowa. esthervilledailynews.com

Usage in scientific papers

It now looks as if z → z + 1 produces a complete mess, and it is difficult to understand this action from (4.14).
Lectures on Nongeometric Flux Compactifications

It is hard to extract further physical results from this, because as soon as the number of efolds after Sc become substantial, it could well be that this messes up the WMAP agreement in the density perturbation, which is dependent on the region about 60 efolds before the end of inflation.
D-term inflation after spontaneous symmetry breaking

The minimal version, which introduces messengers in the fundamental representation of SU(5), produces O(100 GeV) SUSY masses for a messenger scale Λmess ∼ 100 TeV.
Status of Constraints on Supersymmetry

The triplescalar couplings (A-terms) are almost zero at the messenger scale Λmess ∼ 100 TeV and remain relatively small at the electroweak scale.
Status of Constraints on Supersymmetry

As already said before, the observations of the process X are blurred with a (small) noise, which messes things up when data are recorded with high-frequency.
Testing for jumps in a discretely observed process

Usage in literature

Make any kind of a mess out of it you want to. "Space Viking" by Henry Beam Piper

Of course, you have not got your full kit yet; but you will want a mess jacket and waistcoat. "At the Point of the Bayonet" by G. A. Henty

He just caught a fleeting glimpse of something dropping lightly to the ground close beside the mess tent. "The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour" by George A. Warren

You've got in a nice mess! "Follow My leader" by Talbot Baines Reed

In other words, you're making a jolly mess, and are enjoying yourselves. "Tom, Dick and Harry" by Talbot Baines Reed

Now, you come down and mess with us, and Mr. Peters can take the deck when he comes. "The Pirate Shark" by Elliott Whitney

And you are going to dine with him at the mess this evening. "In Honour's Cause" by George Manville Fenn

I was let into all the secrets of the mess in which the youngsters were placed by the captain to be instructed and kept in order. "Frank Mildmay" by Captain Frederick Marryat

Now that we are in harbour, I mess here, because Mrs Trotter is on board. "Peter Simple" by Frederick Marryat

For a modest fellow you are certainly capable of stirring up a queer mess of situations. "Blacksheep! Blacksheep!" by Meredith Nicholson

Usage in poetry
Dooant sell yor heavenly birthright,
For a mess ov worldly pottage:
But spend less time i'th' squire's hall
An moor i'th' poor man's cottage.
They agreed at their mess - they agreed in the glass -
They agreed in the choice of their "set,"
And they also agreed in adoring, alas!
The Vivandiere, pretty FILLETTE.
And here's where they tortured the prisoners -
On that rack when they wouldn't confess
They were crushed till their life's blood ran drip, drip, drip.
Feeling faint, Sir? Well, here's sergeant's mess.
"Send a swift shallop to Hiram of Tyre,
Felling and floating our beautiful trees,
Say that the Brethren and I desire
Talk with our Brethren who use the seas.
And we shall be happy to meet them at mess
As Fellow-Craftsmen-no more and no less."
I didn't oughter give me 'ome address
To sergeant when 'e last went on 'is leave;
And now the 'ole shebang's a bloody mess;
I didn't think the missis would deceive.
And 'ere was I, a-riskin' of me life,
And thee was 'e, a-sleepin' wiv me wife.
Woman's sho' a cur'ous critter, an' dey ain't no doubtin' dat.
She's a mess o' funny capahs f'om huh slippahs to huh hat.
Ef you tries to un'erstan' huh, an' you fails, des' up an' say:
"D' ain't a bit o' use to try to un'erstan' a woman's way."