Mock vs Mess - What's the difference?
mock | mess |
An imitation, usually of lesser quality.
Mockery, the act of mocking.
* Bible, Proverbs xiv. 9
A practice exam set by an educating institution to prepare students for an important exam.
To mimic, to simulate.
* Shakespeare
* Shakespeare
To make fun of by mimicking, to taunt.
* Bible, 1 Kings xviii. 27
* Gray
To tantalise, and disappoint (the hopes of).
* Bible, Judges xvi. 13
* 1597 , William Shakespeare, Henry IV , Part II, Act V, Scene III:
* 1603 , William Shakespeare, Othello , Act III, Scene III:
* 1667 , John Milton, Paradise Lost :
* Milton
* 1765 , Benjamin Heath, A revisal of Shakespear's text , page 563 (a commentary on the "mocke the meate" line from Othello):
* 1812 , The Critical Review or, Annals of Literature , page 190:
Imitation, not genuine; fake.
(obsolete) Mass; church service.
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.
* Milton
A number of persons who eat together, and for whom food is prepared in common; especially, persons in the military or naval service who eat at the same table.
* 1610 , , IV. iv. 11:
A set of four (from the old practice of dividing companies into sets of four at dinner).
(US) The milk given by a cow at one milking.
(label) To take meals with a mess.
(label) To belong to a mess.
(label) To eat (with others).
(label) To supply with a mess.
A disagreeable mixture or confusion of things; hence, a situation resulting from blundering or from misunderstanding; a disorder.
(label) A large quantity or number.
(label) Excrement.
(label) To make a mess of.
(label) To throw into confusion.
(label) To interfere.
As nouns the difference between mock and mess
is that mock is an imitation, usually of lesser quality while mess is mass; church service.As verbs the difference between mock and mess
is that mock is to mimic, to simulate while mess is to take meals with a mess.As an adjective mock
is imitation, not genuine; fake.mock
English
Alternative forms
* (l) (obsolete)Noun
(en noun)- (Crashaw)
- Fools make a mock at sin.
- He got a B in his History mock , but improved to an A in the exam.
Verb
(en verb)- To see the life as lively mocked' as ever / Still sleep ' mocked death.
- Mocking marriage with a dame of France.
- Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud.
- Let not ambition mock their useful toil.
- Thou hast mocked me, and told me lies.
- And with his spirit sadly I survive, / to mock the expectations of the world; / to frustrate prophecies, and to raze out / rotten opinion
- "It is the greene-ey'd Monster, which doth mocke / The meate it feeds on."
- Why do I overlive? / Why am I mocked with death, and lengthened out / to deathless pain?
- He will not / Mock us with his blest sight, then snatch him hence.
- ‘Mock’ certainly never signifies to loath. Its common signification is, to disappoint.
- The French revolution indeed is a prodigy which has mocked the expectations both of its friends and its foes. It has cruelly disappointed the fondest hopes of the first, nor has it observed that course which the last thought that it would have pursued.
Synonyms
* See also * See alsoSee also
* jeerAdjective
(-)mess
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) (m), partly from (etyl) . More at (m); see also (m).Noun
(es)- A mess of pottage.
- At their savoury dinner set / Of herbs and other country messes .
- the wardroom mess
- But that our feasts / In every mess have folly, and the feeders / Digest it with accustom,
- (Latimer)
