Word.ws English Dictionary

mare's-nest

mare's-nest is the alternative spelling of mare's nest.

Meaning of mare's nest

Noun

mare's nest (plural mare's nests or mares' nests)

  1. (figuratively) A great discovery which turns out to be illusory; especially, a hoax.
    • Near-synonyms: bullshit, horseshit
    Synonyms:
    bullshit, horseshit
  2. (figuratively) A confused or complicated situation; a muddle.
    • Though Chancellor Maupeou had supported the idea of a trial [...], the legal proceedings developed into a mare's nest of accusations and counter-accusations.2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 277
    Synonyms:
    rat's nest

Forms of mare's-nest

pluralmare's-nests

Questions about mare's-nest

What is mare's-nest the alternative spelling of?
Mare's-nest is the alternative spelling of mare's nest.

Words near mare's-nest in the dictionary

  1. mare's tails
  2. mare's teat
  3. mare's teat grape
  4. mare's teat grapes
  5. mare's teats
  6. mare's-nest
  7. mare's-tail
  8. mare's-tails
  9. Maready
  10. Mareadys
  11. mareblob

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mare's-nest (page history and authors); mare's nest (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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