The Etymology of Mess
Mess has had a long career and three quite distinct meanings. The original sense, in Middle English from around 1300, was a course of food sent to the table — from Old French mes, descended from Latin missus, the past participle of mittere (to send). The Bible’s mess of pottage in the King James version of Genesis 25 — the stew Esau sold his birthright for — uses this oldest meaning: a portion of food. From there, mess broadened in the 16th century to the group of people who shared a portion together, especially in military and naval contexts: an officers’ mess, the regimental mess. That sense persists today in armed-forces vocabulary worldwide. The disorder meaning — a mess on the floor, a messy desk — is the youngest of the three, attested in American English from around 1880, possibly extending from the chaotic state of military mess-halls or simply from the messy-eating association. The Latin mittere also gives English mission, message, and missile.