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

Word History and Origins

Origin of mare's-nest¹

First recorded in 1610–20

Example Sentences

The behavior Bezos describes in his blog post does, though, create a mare’s-nest of issues regarding the portions of the nonprosecution agreement in which AMI promised to cooperate fully with the government.

From Slate

This became a mare’s-nest when Nyclass opposed the mayoral candidacy of Ms. Quinn at the exact moment people within the A.S.P.C.A. like Ms. Adams were trying to curry favor with her.

From New York Times

Tarquin was a great deal troubled by the signs of the times; or, rather, he was made so uncomfortable by an evil conscience, that if a snake appeared in his path, it seemed to hang over him like a horrible load; and if he went to sleep, there was a mare's-nest always at hand, to trouble him with a night-mare.

From Project Gutenberg

I suspect that Congreve, like myself, did not read the Reliqui� very carefully, but it is strange that no other of Lady Gethin's numerous contemporary admirers discovered the mare's-nest.

From Project Gutenberg

It has its weekly "Ephemerides," in which every new pseudo-scientific mare's-nest is hailed and belauded with the unconscious unfairness of ignorance; and an army of "reconcilers," enlisted in its service, whose business seems to be to mix the black of dogma and the white of science into the neutral tint of what they call liberal theology.

From Project Gutenberg