mare's-nest
Americannoun
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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.
-
an extremely confused, entangled, or disordered place, situation, etc..
We just moved in, and the place is a mare's-nest.
noun
-
a discovery imagined to be important but proving worthless
-
a disordered situation
Etymology
Origin of mare's-nest
First recorded in 1610–20
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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 ● Feb. 8, 2019
And at week's end the Allis-Chalmers dispute was still a mare's-nest.
From Time Magazine Archive
In the 22 hours that followed, the world press collected a mare's-nest of wild reports from Apia.
From Time Magazine Archive
We shall work the case out independently, and leave this fellow Jones to exult over any mare's-nest which he may choose to construct.
From The Sign of the Four by Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir
Thoroughly disgruntled, more than half persuaded he had staked a claim for a mare's-nest, he took the road in the heat of a day even more oppressive than its yesterday.
From Alias the Lone Wolf by Vance, Louis Joseph
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
