mare's nest

noun

Definition of mare's nestnext
as in hell
a state in which everything is out of order the lack of planning had resulted in the city's evacuation being a mare's nest of epic proportions

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for mare's nest
  1. hell
  2. havoc
  3. mess
  4. jumble
  5. chaos
  6. confusion
  7. snake pit
  8. disorder
Noun
  • University email reply-all hell is one of many high jinks that form this bubbly little British rom-com.
    — Savannah Salazar, Vulture, 28 Aug. 2026
  • An episode of septicemia, with its hells and paradises, its nightmares and hallucinations, transforms Borges into a story writer.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 26 Aug. 2026
Definition of hell
Noun
  • Although not a direct hit, Lala dumped nearly 3 feet of rain on the Big Island, bringing widespread havoc.
    — Doyle Rice, USA Today, 1 Sep. 2026
  • In the movie, a group of teens accidentally release a bunch of monsters from Stine’s book collection, creating complete havoc and plenty of great family-friendly frights.
    — Keith Langston, PEOPLE, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of havoc
Noun
  • The defense was organized and rebounded well from some early breakdowns on stretch running plays, and Petrino’s offense doesn’t look like the mess Freddie Kitchens’ group was last year.
    — Stewart Mandel, New York Times, 30 Aug. 2026
  • In another drawing, a Cubist mess of igloos and sandcastles lay in a heap.
    — Laura Preston, New Yorker, 30 Aug. 2026
Definition of mess
Noun
  • Arches and natural bridges sweep like buttresses from jumbles of rock, giving this landscape a mystical, cathedral-like quality.
    — Madison Chapman, Outside, 25 Mar. 2026
  • Macaroons are chewy jumbles of coconut bound together with egg whites and sweetened condensed milk.
    — Lynda Balslev, Mercury News, 10 Feb. 2026
Definition of jumble
Noun
  • Roughly two dozen other people, including several children, were struck by gunfire and dozens more were injured in the chaos.
    — Jack Harvel, Kansas City Star, 28 Aug. 2026
  • What was new was someone finally organizing it into something a nurse could use in sixty seconds in the chaos of a delivery room.
    — Stacy L. Hambleton, Fortune, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of chaos
Noun
  • The company, which offers credit cards used to make rent and mortgage payments, had fumbled a critical transition, leading to confusion and financial stress for its customers.
    — Andy Kroll, ProPublica, 31 Aug. 2026
  • Aggregators typically disclose this information in their search filters, and knowing it in advance avoids confusion on arrival.
    — Matthew Kayser, USA Today, 31 Aug. 2026
Definition of confusion
Noun
  • The town is home to the world's largest snake pits, where tens of thousands of non-venomous red-sided garter snakes emerge each spring to wriggle over one another.
    — Kelli Bender, PEOPLE, 14 May 2026
  • By mimicking the biological blueprint of snake pit organs and combining it with semiconductor manufacturing, the researchers have opened a path toward truly accessible thermal vision.
    — Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 1 Dec. 2025
Definition of snake pit
Noun
  • Aaronson pointed to the second law of thermodynamics, which states that entropy, a measure of disorder, tends to increase over time.
    — Ben Brubaker, Quanta Magazine, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Buprenorphine, semisynthetic opioid medication used primarily to treat opioid use disorder (OUD) and to manage severe chronic pain.
    — Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of disorder
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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mare
mare's nest
mare's nests
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Cite this Entry

“Mare's nest.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mare%27s%20nest. Accessed 3 Sep. 2026.

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