Word.ws English Dictionary

lose the number of one's mess

lose the number of one's mess verb: to die, to perish.

Verb

lose the number of one's mess (third-person singular simple present loses the number of one's mess, present participle losing the number of one's mess, simple past and past participle lost the number of one's mess)

  1. (idiomatic) To die, to perish.
    • "What do you think we come to sea for? If we can take a man-of-war of our own size she's worth half a dozen merchant craft, though, to be sure, some of us may lose the number of our mess; but we all know that, and make no count of it."1870, W.H.G. Kingston, From Powder Monkey to Admiral
    • Shore folk think sailors are heartless, and that when a poor chap is lost overboard, they only say that "So-and-so has lost the number of his mess!" and, after having an auction over his kit in the fo'c's'le, then dismiss him from their memory!1880, J.C. Hutcheson, Fritz and Eric

Forms of lose the number of one's mess

third-person singular presentloses the number of one's mess
present participlelosing the number of one's mess
past participlelost the number of one's mess
pastlost the number of one's mess

Questions about lose the number of one's mess

What does lose the number of one's mess mean?
Lose the number of one's mess means to die, to perish.
What part of speech is lose the number of one's mess?
Lose the number of one's mess is a verb.
What is the past tense of lose the number of one's mess?
The past tense of lose the number of one's mess is lost the number of one's mess.

Words near lose the number of one's mess in the dictionary

  1. lose the battle, but win the war
  2. lose the bell
  3. lose the bubble
  4. lose the dressing room
  5. lose the fang
  6. lose the number of one's mess
  7. lose the plot
  8. lose the run of oneself
  9. lose the thread
  10. lose their head
  11. lose time

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lose the number of one's mess (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-lose the number of one's mess.ogg.

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