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Mess   /mɛs/   Listen
noun
Mess  n.  Mass; church service. (Obs.)


Mess  n.  
1.
A quantity of food set on a table at one time; provision of food for a person or party for one meal; as, a mess of pottage; also, the food given to a beast at one time. "At their savory dinner set Of herbs and other country messes."
2.
A number of persons who eat together, and for whom food is prepared in common; especially, persons in the military or naval service who eat at the same table; as, the wardroom mess.
3.
A set of four; from the old practice of dividing companies into sets of four at dinner. (Obs.)
4.
The milk given by a cow at one milking. (U.S.)
5.
A disagreeable mixture or confusion of things; hence, a situation resulting from blundering or from misunderstanding; as, he made a mess of it. (Colloq.)


verb
Mess  v. t.  
1.
To supply with a mess.
2.
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."


Mess  v. i.  (past & past part. messed; pres. part. messing)  To take meals with a mess; to belong to a mess; to eat (with others); as, I mess with the wardroom officers.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Mess" Quotes from Famous Books



... courses was a most enjoyable recreation in those fine September days of 1863. A gallop twenty miles up the valley to where Minty kept watch and ward upon our flank with his trusty horsemen; a dinner at that hospitable mess-table, furnished maybe with a pig which had strayed from its home not wholly through natural perversity; and then a lively ride back in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... clean. Just as the foods and drinks of a good dinner, if mixed up together on a dish, would produce a filthy mess, so conversely, if we could separate any form of dirt into the pure solid, liquid and volatile chemical compounds of which it is composed, into pretty crystals, liquids and gases, exhibited in the scientific manner on spotless watch-glasses and in thrice-washed test-tubes,—we ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... me! Isn't nine almost as bad as ten? There I was, just putting my bread in the oven," went on Mrs. Baggert, the housekeeper, "and I was so startled that I dropped it, and now the dough is all over the kitchen floor. I never saw such a mess." ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... got us in a pretty mess! It so happened I was looking for a letter myself," he snapped, as he jerked himself to his feet. "See here, Teddy, where did that rascally little dog go to? Come, let's go find Rover," he finished, stooping and lifting the small boy to his shoulder. The next ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... his merry eyes twinkling against his deep space tan. "It's mighty good to see you boys. Come on in the house. I got a mess of fatfish just pulled out of the stream and some of the most delicious biscuits you ever had in ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell


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