Word.ws English Dictionary

mess of pottage

mess of pottage noun: something of trivial value, especially of immediate value.

Noun

mess of pottage (plural messes of pottage)

  1. (idiomatic) Something of trivial value, especially of immediate value.

Forms of mess of pottage

pluralmesses of pottage

Origin of mess of pottage

See sell one's birthright for a mess of pottage.

Questions about mess of pottage

What does mess of pottage mean?
Mess of pottage means something of trivial value, especially of immediate value.
What part of speech is mess of pottage?
Mess of pottage is a noun.
What is the plural of mess of pottage?
The plural of mess of pottage is messes of pottage.

Words near mess of pottage in the dictionary

  1. Mess John
  2. Mess Johns
  3. mess kit
  4. mess kits
  5. mess of greens
  6. mess of pottage
  7. mess over
  8. mess room
  9. mess rooms
  10. mess set
  11. mess sets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mess of pottage (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-mess of pottage.ogg.

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