mess

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As the former Arsenal captain hinted after the game, this mess is an inherited one.

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Definitions (54)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (20)

  1. noun A disorderly or dirty accumulation, heap, or jumble: left a mess in the yard.
  2. noun A cluttered, untidy, usually dirty condition: The kitchen was a mess.
  3. noun A confused, troubling, or embarrassing condition; a muddle: With divorce and bankruptcy proceedings pending, his personal life was in a mess.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (22)

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Words tagged mess

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This word has been looked up 166 times.

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

heap ·  stuff ·  smell ·  lump ·  meal ·  mass ·  bit ·  dish ·  waste ·  bundle ·  lot ·  mistake

Used in the same contextWord Family

mess:   messes ·  messed ·  messing
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (4)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English mes, course of a meal, food, group of people eating together, from Old French, from Late Latin missus, from Latin, past participle of mittere, to place.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (3)

  1. from Middle English mes, mess, messe, from Old French mes (F mets—a bad spelling), a portion of food, a dish, a course at table, = Italian messo, masculine, also messa, feminine, a course at table. from Middle Latin *missuon (found only as messum, after Old French, a portion of land), properly neuter of Latin missus, sent, past participle of mittere, send: see mission. Cf. Anglo-Saxon sand, sond, early Middle English sond, a mess, dish, literally a sending: see send. The word mess (Middle English mĕs) may have been partly confused in Middle English with mēs, mese, a dinner: see mese.
  2. from mess, n.
  3. A variant of mesh, which is a variant of mash, a mixture: see mash. Cf. muss.
 

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/mɛs/
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