different between bedlam vs mess

English

Etymology

From Bedlam, alternative name of the English lunatic asylum, Bethlem Royal Hospital (royal hospital from 1375, mental hospital from 1403) (earlier St Mary of Bethlehem outside Bishopsgate, hospice in existence from 1329, priory established 1247), since used to mean “a place or situation of madness and chaos”. Bedlam as name of hospital attested 1450.

Phonologically, corruption of Bethlem, itself a corruption of Bethlehem (the Biblical town), from Ancient Greek ??????? (B?thleém) from Biblical Hebrew ????? ?????? (bê? le?em, literally “house of bread”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b?dl?m/

Noun

bedlam (plural bedlams)

1. A place or situation of chaotic uproar, and where confusion prevails.
2. (obsolete) An insane person; a lunatic; a madman.
   • ca. 1605, William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act III, sc. 7:

     Let's follow the old Earl, and get the Bedlam

     To lead him where he would; his roguish madness

     Allows itself to anything.

   • 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress, Christian overtakes Faithful:

     The pilgrims were clothed with such kind of raiment as was diverse from the raiment of any that traded in that fair. The people, therefore, of the fair, made a great gazing upon them: some said they were fools, some they were bedlams, and some they are outlandish men.

3. (obsolete) A lunatic asylum; a madhouse.
   • 1824, Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XIV:lxxxiv:

     Shut up the world at large, let Bedlam out;

     And you will be perhaps surprised to find

     All things pursue exactly the same route,

     As now with those of soi-disant sound mind.

   • 1843, Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol":

     “There’s another fellow,” muttered Scrooge; who overheard him: “my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I’ll retire to Bedlam.”

   • ca. 1909, Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth, Letter II:

     ... only the holy can stand the joys of that bedlam.

Descendants

• ? Russian: ??????? (bedlám)

Translations

Further reading

• Bethlem Royal Hospital on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• bedlam in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• ambled, balmed, beldam, blamed, lambed

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /m?s/
• Rhymes: -?s

Etymology 1

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

Noun

mess (countable and uncountable, plural messes)

2. A disagreeable mixture or confusion of things; hence, a situation resulting from blundering or from misunderstanding.

   Synonyms: disorder; see also Thesaurus:disorder

3. (colloquial) A large quantity or number.

4. (euphemistic) Excrement.

5. (figuratively) A person in a state of (especially emotional) turmoil or disarray; an emotional wreck.

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:mess.

Translations

Verb

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

1. (transitive, often used with "up") To make untidy or dirty.
   1. To make soiled by defecating.
2. (transitive, often used with "up") To throw into disorder or to ruin.
   • 1905', Arthur Colton, The Belted Seas

     It wasn't right either to be messing another man's sleep.

3. (intransitive) To interfere.

4. (used with "with") To screw around with, to bother, to be annoying to.

Translations

Derived terms

Etymology 2

From Middle English mes, partly from Old English m?se, m?ose (“table”); and partly from Old French mes, Late Latin missum, from mitt? (“to put, place (e.g. on the table)”). See mission, and compare Mass (“religious service”).

Noun

mess (plural messes)

1. (obsolete) Mass; a church service.
3. (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.
   • c. 1555, Hugh Latimer, letter to one in prison for the profession of the Gospel

     1. a mess of pottage
4. (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.
5. A building or room in which mess is eaten.
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.

   Synonym: slaughter

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

• Mess (military) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Verb

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).
   • 1836, George Simpson & al., HBC Standing Rules and Regulations, §18:

     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...

4. (transitive) To supply with a mess.

Further reading

• Mess (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

• mess in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• MSEs, MSes, Mses, Mses., SEMs, SMEs

Hungarian

Alternative forms

• messél, metssz, metsszél

Etymology

metsz +? -j (personal suffix)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?m???]
• Hyphenation: mess
• Rhymes: -???

Verb

mess

1. second-person singular subjunctive present indefinite of metsz

Maltese

Etymology

From Arabic ?????? (massa).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /m?s/

Verb

mess (imperfect jmiss, past participle mimsus)

1. to touch
2. (figuratively) to touch, to affect

Conjugation

Manx

Etymology

From Old Irish mes. Cognate with Irish meas (“fruit, mast”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /me?s/

Noun

mess m (genitive singular mess, plural messyn)

1. (botany) fruit

Derived terms

• messghart

Mutation

Norwegian Bokmål

Verb

mess

1. imperative of messe

Old Irish

Alternative forms

• mes

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *messus, from Proto-Indo-European *med-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [m?es]

Noun

mess m (genitive messa, nominative plural mesai)

1. verbal noun of midithir
2. judgment
   • c. 800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 55^d11

Declension

Mutation

Further reading

• Gregory Toner, Maire Ní Mhaonaigh, Sharon Arbuthnot, Dagmar Wodtko, Maire-Luise Theuerkauf, editors (2019) , “1 mes(s)”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

Swedish

Etymology

Clipping of sms.

Noun

mess n

1. (colloquial) text message

   Synonym: sms

Declension

Derived terms

• messa

References

• mess in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• mess in Svensk ordbok (SO)

Vilamovian

Noun

mess n

1. brass

Related terms

• messera