Converse of object

• jumble: Sam only failed to find the back of the net due to a jumbled mess with a defender and the St Ives keeper.

• untangle: Flickr is clever enough to untangle the mess of tags in it's database into clusters all by itself.

• char: The physical X Files are a charred mess, and Mulder is trying to recreate the documents.

• inherit: We will inherit a terrible mess on the London Underground.

Preposition: on

• pavement: To avoid horse mess on the pavements or roads - exercise your horse in a suitable field prior to going on public highways.

Adjective modifier

• unholy: Which is how I ended up with this unholy mess.

• tangled: The cotton was cleaned and opened and then fed into the machine where the tangled mess was stretched and straightened.

• sticky: Which is one of the reasons that we're in this sticky mess in the first place!

• gooey: It was her usual effort of soggy chips and even soggier fish that had all sort of merged together into one horrible gooey mess.

• soggy: Go look at wasps nest: now a sad soggy mess sans its outer cover: a few wasps cower: destroy remains.

• horrible: The US and Britain made a horrible mess of Iraq.

Modifies a noun

• tent: Any food left out in the mess tent would be dragged off or eaten on the spot.

• tin: The army set up a mess in a tent where we took our mugs and mess tins with us for each meal.

• deck: Scott himself observed that reading on the mess deck tended to be of a " desultory character " .

• hall: I elect not to eat in the sweltering hot mess hall.

Noun used with modifier

• dog: Then came a mention of dog mess & even a mention of our bus services.

• postcode: Posted in General, Media coverage | 9 Comments » In today's Guardian: who will address the postcode mess?

Preposition: of

• pottage: He sold his interest in the Lord for a mess of pottage.

Followed by an intransitive particle

• around: I have seen them messing around, wiring them together.

• up: We also have found the messing up of the weekend a bit of a pain.