Word.ws English Dictionary

mess

/mɛs/

mess noun: a thing or group of things in a disagreeable, disorganised, or dirty state; hence a bad situation.

Noun (1)

mess (countable and uncountable, plural messes)

  1. A thing or group of things in a disagreeable, disorganised, or dirty state; hence a bad situation.
    • 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?2006 Feb. 3, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, Season 1, Episode 4
    • He made a mess of it.
  2. (colloquial) A large quantity or number.
    • Messerschmidts! A whole mess of Messerschmidts!1943 November 20, Daffy the Commando, spoken by Daffy Duck
    • My boss dumped a whole mess of projects on my desk today.
  3. (euphemistic) Excrement.
    • There was dog mess all along the street.
    • Did you hear that? It scared the mess out of me.
  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.

Verb (1)

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

  1. (often, transitive) To make soiled by defecating.
    • It seems like all you do is cry, eat, and mess your diapers!2000 March 12, Tom Armstrong, Marvin (comic)
  2. (often, transitive) To make soiled by ejaculating.
  3. (often, transitive) To throw into disorder or to ruin.
    • Charles Dickens, quoted in: 1875, John Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens
      Yet I was not sorry that the creature found the loophole for escape. The officers had taken him illegally without any warrant; and really they messed it all through, quite facetiously.
    • But it wasn't right to be messing another man's sleep with tidal waves that didn't belong to the other man.1905, Arthur Colton, The Belted Seas, page 76
  4. (intransitive) To interfere.
    • This doesn't concern you. Don't mess.

Noun (2)

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.
    • a mess of pottagec. 1555, Hugh Latimer, letter to one in prison for the profession of the Gospel
    • At their savoury dinner set / Of herbs and other country messes.a. 1645, John Milton, “L’Allegro”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, →OCLC
  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
    • But that our Feaſts / In euery Meſſe, haue folly; and the Feeders / Digeſt with a Cuſtome,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...
  4. A building or room in which mess is eaten.
    • 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.1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 20
  5. (India) a type of restaurant characterized by homely-style cooking and food.
  6. A set of four (from the old practice of dividing companies into sets of four at dinner).
  7. (US) The milk given by a cow at one milking.
  8. (collective) A group of iguanas.
    • A Florida high school swimming pool has been shut down indefinitely after a mess of iguanas has claimed it for themselves.2024 December 31, Service Industry News
    • Love how green iguanas look like dinosaurs. Saw a 'mess' of iguanas on Little Conch Key in the Florida Keys. So cool!2026 June 13, nictatinglens, Threads
    Synonyms:
    slaughter
  9. A dessert of fruit and cream, similar to a fool.
    • 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...1913, Pearson's Magazine, volume 36, part 2, page 373
    • "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 […]1916, Edward Frederic Benson, David Blaize, page 284

Verb (2)

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).
    • 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...1836, George Simpson & al., HBC Standing Rules and Regulations, §18
    • I mess with the wardroom officers.
  4. (transitive) To supply with a mess.

Proper noun capitalized: Mess

Mess (plural Messes)

  1. A surname from German.

mess meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

mess in Hindi

mess, confusion, being amiss
गड़बड़ gaṛbaṛ
mess, confusion; trouble, affair
झमेला jhamelā
mess, muddle, confusion
गड़बड़झाला gaṛbaṛjhālā
a mess
कीचड़ kīcaṛ

mess in Tamil

உணவகம், உண்பகம், அவிழகம், குளறுபடி, குழப்பநிலை, குழப்பம்

mess in Urdu

mess, trouble, affair
جھمیلا jhamelā
a mess
کیچڑ kīcaṛ

mess in Bengali

জগাখিচুড়ি, গড়বড়, বিশৃঙ্খলা, একপাত্র খাবার, মেস্, খাবার
More languagesFewer languages
mess in Malayalam
കുഴപ്പം, അടുക്കും ക്രമവുമില്ലായ്മ, നാനാവിധം, കുട്ടിച്ചോറ്
mess in Kannada
ಖಾನಾವಳಿ khānāvaḷi
mess in Punjabi
ترک trakk, کھلارا khilārā
mess in Nepali
गडबडी
mess in Arabic
فَوْضَى fawḍā, اِخْتِلَاط iḵtilāṭ, اِرْتِبَاك irtibāk, اِضْطِرَاب iḍṭirāb
mess in Thai
ความสับสน kwaam-sàp-sǒn

Examples of mess in a sentence

  • My bedroom is such a mess; I need to tidy up.
  • She brought back a mess of fish to fix for supper.
  • I'm a mess in a dress, can't show up on time even if it would save my life.2009, Andrew Frampton, Steve Diamond, “According to You”, in Believe, performed by Orianthi:
  • They neither ate flesh nor fish, but lived on milk diet, made up into messes with saffron.1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume II, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 191:
  • [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.1903, Henry Yule, Arthur Burnell, Hobson-Jobson:
  • But as NPR reported in 2018, one man got an even greater surprise after he'd picked up a mess of iguanas and loaded them into his car.2024 February 14, Vanessa Romo, “Brumation and torpor: How animals survive cold snaps by playing dead-ish”, in Wyoming Public Media:

All 40 example sentences with mess

Synonyms of mess

18 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of mess

Forms of mess

Noun
pluralmesses
Verb
third-person singular presentmesses
present participlemessing
past participlemessed
pastmessed
Proper noun
pluralMesses

Past tense of mess: messed

Plural of mess: messes

Origin of mess

Perhaps a corruption of Middle English mesh (“mash”), compare muss, or derived from Etymology 2 "mixed foods, as for animals". Compare also Old English mes (“dung, excrement”).

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”).

Borrowed from German Mess.

Words formed from mess

Phrases with mess

14 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with mess

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about mess

What does mess mean?
Mess means a thing or group of things in a disagreeable, disorganised, or dirty state; hence a bad situation.
What is mess in Hindi?
Mess in Hindi is गड़बड़ (gaṛbaṛ), झमेला (jhamelā), गड़बड़झाला (gaṛbaṛjhālā). See Mess meaning in Hindi.
How do you use mess in a sentence?
My bedroom is such a mess; I need to tidy up.
What part of speech is mess?
Mess can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce mess?
Mess is pronounced /mɛs/.
What is the plural of mess?
The plural of mess is messes.

Words near mess in the dictionary

  1. mesquits
  2. Mesropian
  3. Mesropians
  4. Mesropyan
  5. Mesropyans
  6. mess
  7. mess about
  8. mess around
  9. mess bag
  10. mess bags
  11. mess beef

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mess (page history and authors); Mess (page history and authors); कीचड़ (Hindi) (page history and authors); mess (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); جھمیلا (Urdu) (page history and authors); mess (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); mess (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); ಖಾನಾವಳಿ (Kannada) (page history and authors); ترک (Punjabi) (page history and authors); mess (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-mess.ogg.

Cite this entry: “mess.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mess. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.