From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englisha mess of somethinga mess of somethingAmerican English informalLOT/LARGE NUMBER OR AMOUNT a lot of something a mess of fresh fish → mess
Examples from the Corpus
a mess of something• a mess of fresh fish• By the door, in the middle of the working class district of Prenzlauer Berg, a mess of candles flutter.• I expect he found he'd sold his working-class birthright for a mess of Bloomsbury pottage.• I was afraid of doing something wrong and ending up at the bottom in a mess of twisted metal and broken bones.• He found them in a mess of vomit.• Polar Star is no exception; its lovely clueless opening soon snarls up in a mess of motives and half-finished characters.• The shell hit the roof of the building and made a mess of the inside of the building.• Most people make a mess of handling money.• The doors opened up to a mess of more wrapped, framed works scattered everywhere. 