mess

• IPA^(key): /mɛs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛs

Perhaps a corruption of Middle English mesh (“mash”), compare muss, or derived from Etymology 2 "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.
   • 2006 Feb. 3, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, Season 1, Episode 4:

     No, look, I know that the place looks like a bit of a mess but it's actually a very delicate ecosystem. Everything is connected. It's like the rainforest. You change one thing, even the tiniest bit, and the whooole rainforest dies. You don't want the rainforest to die, do ya?

   Synonyms: disorder; see also Thesaurus: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.

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

1. (transitive, often used with "up") To make untidy or dirty.
   1. To make soiled by defecating.
      • 2000 March 12, Tom Armstrong, Marvin (comic):

        It seems like all you do is cry, eat, and mess your diapers!

   2. To make soiled by ejaculating.
2. (transitive, often used with "up") To throw into disorder or to ruin.
   • 1905, Arthur Colton, The Belted Seas‎, page 76:

     But it wasn't right to be messing another man's sleep with tidal waves that didn't belong to the other man.

3. (intransitive) To interfere.

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

From Middle English mes, partly from Old English mēse, mēose (“table”), a vernacular loan from Latin/Late Latin mē(n)sa (“table; meal”); 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.
   • c. 1555, Hugh Latimer, letter to one in prison for the profession of the Gospel

     a mess of pottage

   • a. 1645, John Milton, “L’Allegro”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, →OCLC:

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

   • 1903, Henry Yule, Arthur Burnell, Hobson-Jobson:

     [Curry] consists of meat, fish, fruit, or vegetables, cooked with a quantity of bruised spices and turmeric […] ; and a little of this gives a flavour to a large mess of rice.

3. (collective) 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

   • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv], page 291:

     But that our Feaſts / In euery Meſſe, haue folly; and the Feeders / Digeſt with a Cuſtome,

4. A building or room in which mess is eaten.
   • 1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 20:

     The police mess had formerly been a maternity home for the wives of the Sultans of the state. Faded and tatty, peeling, floorboards eaten and unpolished, its philoprogenitive glory was a memory only.

5. A set of four (from the old practice of dividing companies into sets of four at dinner).
6. (US) The milk given by a cow at one milking.
7. (collective) A group of iguanas.

   Synonym: slaughter

8. (cooking) A dessert of fruit and cream, similar to a fool.
   • 1913, Pearson's Magazine, volume 36, part 2, page 373:

     Eton is renowned for its "messes," and "strawberry mess" is Empress of them all, with raspberry mess as a very good second. It does not at all convey the joys of a "mess" to say that it consists of iced fruit and cream, and somewhat resembles a "fool." It is a thing apart, and should be approached with bated breath and unimpaired capacity.

   • 1916, Edward Frederic Benson, David Blaize, page 284:

     "I'll stand you both strawberry mess." It was perfectly impossible for David not to feel elated at sitting down to strawberry-mess with two members of the eleven, in the full light of day, and in sight of the school generally […]

   • 2014, Lindsey Bareham, Just One Pot:

     Eton mess, for example, which is another name for strawberry fool, links the name of a famous public school with disorder or the army slang for a meal, [...] One friend remembered a banana mess of mashed banana with two scoops of ice cream and loads of cream, and thought the strawberry version something that might be served at the 4th June College picnic, [...]

   • 2015, Darra Goldstein, Sidney Mintz, Michael Krondl, Laura Mason, The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, Oxford University Press, USA, →ISBN, page 243:

     Similar desserts [to Eton Mess] include Lancing Mess (made with bananas), served at Lancing College in Sussex, and Clare College Mush […]

   • 2020, Nigel Napier-Andrews, Gentleman's Portion: The Cookbook:

     One Old Etonian rages that at school the dessert was simply called 'strawberry mess' and was very popular in the tuck shop. It is only outside Eton that the school's name has been added. A similar 'banana mess' is credited to School in Sussex, […]

• → Portuguese: messe

• 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).
   • 1836, George Simpson & al., HBC Standing Rules and Regulations, §18:

     Resolved 18. That no Guide or Interpreter whether at the Factory Depot or Inland be permitted to mess with Commissioned Gentlemen or Clerks in charge of Posts; but while at the Depot they will be allowed per Week 4 days ordinary rations...

   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, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• MSEs, MSes, Mses, Mses., SEMs, SMEs, sems

• messél, metssz, metsszél

metsz +‎ -j (personal suffix)

• IPA^(key): [ˈmɛʃː]
• Hyphenation: mess
• Rhymes: -ɛʃː

mess

1. second-person singular subjunctive present indefinite of metsz

From Arabic مَسَّ (massa).

• IPA^(key): /mɛs/

mess (imperfect jmiss, past participle mimsus)

1. to touch
2. (figurative) to touch, to affect

From Old Irish mes, from Proto-Celtic *messus. 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

• mes

From Proto-Celtic *messus, from Proto-Indo-European *med-.

• IPA^(key): [mʲes]

mess m (genitive messa, nominative plural mesai)

1. verbal noun of midithir
2. judgment
   • c. 800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 55^d11

     Amal du·berad nech hi ceist do Dauid: “Húare is móir sléb fírinne Dǽ, cid ara fodmai-siu, ⟨a⟩ Dauid, didiu a ndu imnedaib ⁊ frithoircnib fo·daimi? Air it fírían-⟨s⟩u.” Ícaid-som didiu anísin, a n‑as·mbeir iudicia Domini abisus multa .i. ataat mesai Dǽ nephchomtetarrachti amal abis ⁊ amal fudumain. Is ed in sin fod·era in n‑erígim, cid ara fodaim int aís fírían inna fochaidi, ⁊ cid ara mbiat in pecthaig isnaib soinmechaib.

     As though someone had put as a question to David: “Because God’s righteousness is as great as a mountain, why then, David, dost thou suffer what of afflictions and injuries thou sufferest? For thou art righteous.” He solves that then when he says “iudicia Domini abyssus multa”, i.e. there are judgments of God incomprehensible like an abyss and like a depth. That is what causes the complaint why the righteous folk endure tribulations, and why sinners are in prosperity.

• Irish: meas

• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “1 mes(s)”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

Clipping of sms.

mess n

1. (colloquial) text message

   Synonym: sms

• messa

• mess in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• mess in Svensk ordbok (SO)

From Middle High German messinc, from Proto-Germanic *masjinga-, of uncertain ultimate origin. Perhaps derived from Ancient Greek Μοσσύνοικοι (Mossúnoikoi, “Mossynoeci”), the name of an ancient people connected with metallurgy; or alternatively from Latin massa (“lump (of metal)”).

mess n

1. brass

• messera