I. noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
fine mess (= bad situation )
▪
That’s another fine mess he’s got himself into.
mess hall
messed up
unholy mess
▪
an unholy mess
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
awful
▪
For one thing, they do not look right; for another, the decaying foliage makes an awful untidy mess .
▪
He comes in about six o'clock this mornin' and he's in an awful mess .
big
▪
It is a big and expensive mess .
▪
Of course, that made an even bigger mess , which caused more titters and giggles.
bloody
▪
Well, I mean, it's the whole bloody mess .
▪
His back was a bloody torn mess .
complete
▪
The flat was a complete mess .
▪
Even if you make a complete mess of it, the model only has a few inches to fall.
▪
The hotel below the line where the water had finally peaked was a complete mess .
▪
I wore my jeans but I felt a complete mess .
▪
Scanners capture images as a pattern of dots, changing the proportions can instantly turn an acceptable image into a complete mess !
economic
▪
There is still a way out of this economic mess , if Mr Gorbachev can summon up the courage to take it.
▪
Looking at the economic mess this country is in demonstrates clearly that we need some guidelines and we need them fast.
▪
Britain is in an economic mess and we need level-headed, responsible leaders to pull us out of it.
▪
We find it hysterically funny, though it is a sad metaphor for the economic mess this country is in.
▪
For nobody can understand what the Government is doing to clear up the economic mess it has created.
financial
▪
The shame of getting into such a financial mess was too much to admit.
▪
At Adobe, Warnock has been cleaning up a few financial messes of late.
▪
I need a new designer and you need to find a way out of a considerable financial mess .
fine
▪
She wondered about the tall east window above the altar - that would make a fine mess if it fell in.
▪
A fine little mess , no?
▪
That's another fine mess they've got themselves into.
real
▪
Covered with paint and jangling jewellery, a real mess , she was.
▪
The parking should be a real mess this year.
▪
But be careful, Write-Protect labels can come off inside the drive an cause a real mess !
▪
It was a real mess , I tell you.
▪
He looked a real mess at the airport, and I don't think we helped matters.
sticky
▪
After he had gone I found that my nightie was covered in a horrible sticky mess with a strange sour smell.
▪
In my experience, certain essential oils, cedarwood in particular, can cause rubber to perish into a sticky mess .
▪
I opened two bottles that I retrieved from the sticky mess on the cabin floor.
▪
He reached forward, and gently spread the sticky mess over her smooth flesh with his fingertips.
▪
When too many snap, the whole web collapses into a sticky mess .
terrible
▪
Oh, but the damage was so terrible , the mess so unspeakable, that he did not know where to begin.
▪
It is hard to believe that you will be able to make something happen to get you out of this terrible mess .
▪
And they've left the most terrible mess in their bedrooms.
▪
The economy is still in a terrible mess .
▪
Cat makes a terrible mess of another client's hair.
▪
And the stage was in a terrible mess , all blood and vomit, and the scenery all smashed up.
▪
Not yet a terrible mess , but a vaguely irritating, vaguely disquieting, formless mess.
▪
Trying to take off our socks first will cause a terrible mess .
unholy
▪
From the unholy mess that was the latter-day Smiths, to a period of hope and promise.
▪
As far as he was concerned she was up to her gorgeous neck in this unholy mess .
whole
▪
Until this whole ridiculous mess is sorted out you're involved right up to your pretty little neck.
▪
First up in this whole mess is Col.
▪
Well, I mean, it's the whole bloody mess .
▪
After the whole mess was over, it made sense.
▪
That ought to be enough to bargain myself clear of the whole mess .
▪
Ironically, of the three, Whalen seems most ready to put the whole mess behind him.
▪
The whole impeachment mess has finally come to an ungainly end but the ultimate significance of the debacle seems clear.
▪
I talked to Eberhart at length about this whole mess .
■ NOUN
hall
▪
He joined every other prisoner in the mess hall for breakfast each morning at six-thirty.
▪
Eventually, because the mess hall would close, they allowed my commands to get through.
▪
In the mess hall I had orange juice, cereal, ham and eggs and coffee.
▪
Then it was double time to the mess hall , and chin-ups and push-ups outside.
▪
I bumped into him by accident at the compound mess hall .
▪
The water was delivered to the mess hall .
▪
I found the officers already assembled at one of the long tables in the mess hall .
tin
▪
From the cupboard beside the screwed-down floor safe, he had taken a mess tin in which he kept his shoe-shining kit.
▪
We finished our soup and swilled out the mess tins with water from the jerry-can.
▪
The mess tin went back into the cupboard.
▪
Each man got a mug of lime juice and water, and a mess tin of dates.
▪
Some one brought me a mess tin half full of very hot tea; it tasted good.
■ VERB
clean
▪
He then commanded one of his daughters-in-law to clean up the mess .
▪
But they are merely marginal figures that mostly clean up the mess .
▪
Mr Marland wants action to clean up the mess once and for all.
▪
The use of public funds to clean up the jusen mess will be the main focus of the session.
▪
Scientists are now drawing up plans to clean up the mess .
▪
Just write and go back later to clean up the mess .
▪
Now taxpayers must pay hundreds of billions of dollars to clean up the mess left by under-capitalised thrifts.
▪
When a child cleans up her mess , thank her.
clear
▪
We need an election and a Labour Government to clear up the mess .
▪
Regulators are busily clearing up the mess .
▪
In alcoholism: Not clearing up physical messes caused by the primary sufferer.
▪
This keeps him happy until it is time to go to the nursery by which time she has cleared up the mess .
▪
Pondering these matters, she went through to the front room to clear up the mess .
▪
It would have been like Donleavy to try to clear up the Asmar mess himself.
▪
A J-C-B digger was brought in, but it still took more than three hours to clear up the mess .
▪
Why hadn't Corbett cleared this mess up?
create
▪
In the middle of all this tidiness Fosdyke created his own particular mess .
▪
You need to scratch out your words, creating an inky mess .
▪
It was a mess ... she had created a ghastly mess.
get
▪
I want you and the company to find some way to get me out of this mess I've been landed in.
▪
Q.. How did we get into this mess ?
▪
How on earth had they managed to get themselves into this mess ?
▪
How are we to get out of the present mess ?
▪
I clean her up but she just gets in a mess again.
▪
Exactly how Hackney got into such a mess is open to question.
▪
It was Clive who had got her into this mess .
▪
You lot get all this mess cleared up and ready to go.
leave
▪
And they've left the most terrible mess in their bedrooms.
▪
The girls were being taken in at night after we left and what a mess we got in the morning!
▪
No, the hard part was wrecking the safe and leaving a mess .
▪
He left a fair old mess behind him, by the way, when he disappeared.
▪
Their teammates were stuck, left to finish the mess .
▪
The police had left a mess in his place: he'd be busy.
look
▪
Like yesterday, when I'd had my hair cut, he did say it looked a mess before!
▪
Do you suppose our City Manager should be looking into this mess , too?
▪
Many of the new shops look a mess .
▪
She approaches girlhood through adulthood, and boy, does it look like a mess .
▪
I knew I looked a mess and I could not face going into class in that state.
▪
There, onlookers peer in through the windows, looking at the strange mess inside.
▪
Fran closed the door and stood silently looking at the mess .
▪
He looked at their camp mess spread around the hearth.
make
▪
It's all these visitors; they make such a mess .
▪
If a company is in a mess , growth simply makes the mess bigger.
▪
Of course, that made an even bigger mess , which caused more titters and giggles.
▪
Even if you make a complete mess of it, the model only has a few inches to fall.
▪
An explosion would have made a mess of them, and matchsticks of that tub.
▪
Do not be too quick to blame the puppy if it makes a mess when you are indoors.
▪
I doubt if the boys realized they were making this big a mess when they did this.
sort
▪
Its Transitional Assistance Group was utterly inadequate to sort out the mess .
▪
Then sort through the larger mess .
▪
She needed space and time to think, time to sort out this mess of mixed emotions.
▪
Now lawyers for all sides are trying to sort out the mess .
▪
Now banks and councils have to sort out the mess .
▪
The firm had to close while an expert sorted out the mess , the Old Bailey heard.
▪
They are the ones who, at present, have to sort out the mess after the degree ceremonies have been long forgotten.
▪
In the end President Mitterrand chose his friend Pierre Berge, head of a fashion house, to sort out the mess .
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a thorough pest/nuisance/mess
dig sb out of trouble/a mess/a hole etc
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪
Dave's life was a mess .
▪
Eric! Get in here and clean up this mess !
▪
If the dog makes a mess , you clean it up!
▪
My hair's a mess .
▪
The house is a total mess .
▪
The welfare system in this country is a mess .
▪
There were cups and ashtrays everywhere - what a mess !
▪
We love having our grandchildren visit, but they always leave such a mess for us to clean up.
▪
We spent the morning tidying up the mess after the party.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪
California's political map is a chaotic mess of overlapping cities, counties and school districts.
▪
He looked a mess , his face covered in bruises and dried blood.
▪
Her swollen lips burned and she knew she must look a mess .
▪
Looking at the economic mess this country is in demonstrates clearly that we need some guidelines and we need them fast.
▪
Part of the mess were 2 dead medics who were sleeping on cots in the building.
▪
The girls were being taken in at night after we left and what a mess we got in the morning!
▪
The inside of the hall was a mess of rubble and charred beams.
▪
There is still a way out of this economic mess , if Mr Gorbachev can summon up the courage to take it.
II. verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
about
▪
His food came - they don't mess about here and he reached for the salt.
▪
I do not know what the people back in Rushcliffe think about him when he messes about in this way.
▪
Rains like these were an opportunity for a good wash, no doubt, and a bit of messing about .
▪
They really don't mess about .
▪
I thought fourteen days was a ridiculous sentence just for messing about .
▪
That's where you get your power from for messing about with horses, just keeping your eyes on that particular bone.
▪
Don't mess about with fireworks and always let an adult light them if you're going for a small family display.
▪
He didn't trust Lee not to mess about with it.
around
▪
It is a small area and most of the teenagers there mess around together.
▪
Was it a good idea to launch our kids' lives as scientists simply by letting them mess around ?
▪
Now he is messing around with education, and look at the mess that that will be in.
▪
Everyone smokes and drinks and messes around .
▪
There we were, messing around with his things, and all the time he was dead as a doornail in Paris.
▪
Above all, why were these chaps messing around with helium-filled contraptions, in an age of routine rocketry?
▪
We knew they had to go so we messed around with it.
▪
Now, I must make this quite clear to you, you can't actually mess around with time.
up
▪
Kris Johnson, having worked hard since messing up , returns from the reported drug suspension in a couple of weeks.
▪
Usually, the only time offensive linemen get noticed is when they mess up .
▪
Hick messed up an attempted pull against Waqar.
▪
The guy on the right side lost the better part of his face and was all messed up .
▪
Freda, the newly-wed, was pregnant, and this was messing up all our duty rosters.
▪
They were piggy-eyed and their hair was messed up , the women looking worse than the men, puffy and tired-looking.
▪
The other isotopes mess up the workings of the nuclear reaction.
▪
Unnerving because if you mess up , you could overpay or face an audit.
■ VERB
want
▪
When legering from a punt you don't want to be messing about with indicators that require two hands to set.
▪
In the majority of cases, the user will not want to mess about converting data from one format to another.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a thorough pest/nuisance/mess
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪
Above all, why were these chaps messing around with helium-filled contraptions, in an age of routine rocketry?
▪
At first they think the builders have messed up the drains.
▪
Hey, man, are you messing with my Phyllis?
▪
So even when he'd got the drop on them they could still count on messing him around somehow.
▪
The lowest levels of activities are not messed with.
▪
The team improves, and the weaselly son gets too profit-minded and temporarily messes things up by selling Ed.
▪
There remains the danger that the national farming crisis might mess up the Six Nations fixtures.
▪
We were like each other; she knew what she wanted and she didn't mess around.