mess

• IPA^(key): /mɛs/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɛs

Perhaps a corruption of Middle English mesh (“for mash”), compare muss, or derived from Etymology 1 "mixed foods, as for animals".

mess (countable and uncountable, plural messes)

1. A disagreeable mixture or confusion of things; hence, a situation resulting from blundering or from misunderstanding; a disorder.

   He made a mess of it.

   My bedroom is such a mess; I need to tidy up.

2. (colloquial) A large quantity or number.

   My boss dumped a whole mess of projects on my desk today.

   She brought back a mess of fish to fix for supper.

3. (euphemistic) Excrement.

   There was dog mess all along the street.

   Parked under a tree, my car was soon covered in birds' mess.

4. (figuratively) A person in a state of (especially emotional) turmoil or disarray; an emotional wreck.

   Between the pain and the depression, I'm a mess.

   He's been a mess and a half ever since you excommunicated him.

• For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:mess.

• see also Thesaurus:disorder

mess (third-person singular simple present messes, present participle messing, simple past and past participle messed)

1. (transitive) To make a mess of.
2. (transitive) To throw into confusion.
   • (Can we date this quote?), Scribner's Magazine

     It wasn't right either to be messing another man's sleep.

3. (intransitive) To interfere.

   This doesn't concern you. Don't mess.

4. screw around with, to bother, to be annoying with

   Stop messing with me!

From Middle English mes, partly from Old English mēse, mēose (“table”); and partly from Old French mes, Late Latin missum, from mittō (“to put, place (e.g. on the table)”). See mission, and compare Mass (“religious service”).

mess (plural messes)

1. (obsolete) Mass; a church service.
2. (archaic) A quantity of food set on a table at one time; provision of food for a person or party for one meal; also, the food given to an animal at one time.

   A mess of pottage.

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     At their savoury dinner set / Of herbs and other country messes.

3. A number of persons who eat together, and for whom food is prepared in common, especially military personnel who eat at the same table.

   the wardroom mess

   • 1610, William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, IV. iv. 11:

     But that our feasts / In every mess have folly, and the feeders / Digest it with accustom,

4. A set of four (from the old practice of dividing companies into sets of four at dinner).

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Latimer to this entry?)

5. (US) The milk given by a cow at one milking.

• Mess (military) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

mess (third-person singular simple present messes, present participle messing, simple past and past participle messed)

1. (intransitive) To take meals with a mess.
2. (intransitive) To belong to a mess.
3. (intransitive) To eat (with others).

   I mess with the wardroom officers.

4. (transitive) To supply with a mess.

• Mess (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• mess in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

• MSEs, MSes, Mses, Mses., SEMs, SMEs

From Old Irish mes. Cognate with Irish meas (“fruit, mast”)

• IPA^(key): /meːs/

mess m (genitive singular mess, plural messyn)

1. (botany) fruit

• messghart

mess

1. imperative of messe

mess n

1. brass

• messera