Mess
WordNet
noun
(1) A (large) military dining room where service personnel eat or relax
(2) A meal eaten in a mess hall by service personnel
(3) Soft semiliquid food
"A mess of porridge"
(4) (often followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent
"A batch of letters"
"A deal of trouble"
"A lot of money"
"He made a mint on the stock market"
"It must have cost plenty"
(5) Informal terms for a difficult situation
"He got into a terrible fix"
"He made a muddle of his marriage"
(6) A state of confusion and disorderliness
"The house was a mess"
"She smoothed the mussiness of the bed"
verb
(7) Make a mess of or create disorder in
"He messed up his room"
(8) Eat in a mess hall
WiktionaryText
Etymology 1
, , , < (e.g. on the table), . See , and compare .
Noun
- Mass; church service.
- 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 a beast at one time.
- A mess of pottage.
- 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.
- The wardroom mess.
- A set of four; — from the old practice of dividing companies into sets of four at dinner.
- The milk given by a cow at one milking.
Verb
- To take meals with a mess.
- To belong to a mess.
- To eat (with others).
- I mess with the wardroom officers.
- To supply with a mess.
Etymology 2
Perhaps a corruption of , compare .