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View synonyms for mare's-nest

mare's-nest

[ mairz-nest ]

noun

  1. something imagined to be an extraordinary discovery but proving to be a delusion or a hoax:

    The announced cure for the disease was merely another mare's-nest.

  2. an extremely confused, entangled, or disordered place, situation, etc.:

    We just moved in, and the place is a mare's-nest.



mare's-nest

noun

  1. a discovery imagined to be important but proving worthless
  2. a disordered situation
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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Word History and Origins

Origin of mare's-nest1

First recorded in 1610–20
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Example Sentences

He said a “mare’s nest” of procedural problems stood in the way of the court making such a decision, however, and his words read more like a warning for the future.

“It has become clear that this mare’s nest could stand in the way” of deciding the case “or at the very least, complicate our resolution of that question,” he wrote.

But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the case had become a “mare’s nest,” with a number of other thorny legal questions tucked inside.

But he added that a “mare’s nest” of procedural issues stood in the way of a clean resolution of those questions.

They'd keep slipping out of the stockade's granite boreholes and, as for his hair, how could any sculptor, no matter how gifted, be expected to reproduce such a mare's nest?

From Salon

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