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Ulysses vocabulary
1289 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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mare's nest
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► definition
Definition:1. A supposed discovery which turns out to be a hoax2. a confusing situation
► uses
Uses:
We shall work the case out independently, and leave this fellow Jones to exult over any mare's-nest which he may choose to construct.
Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock Holmes: The Sign of the Four
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Gentlemen of the jury, let me explain. A pure mare's nest. I am a man misunderstood.
James Joyce. Ulysses
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Though really ’twere easy to conceive
You stuffing half-a-dozen up your sleeve.
No, you’re no Warwick, skilful from the shell
To hatch out sovereigns. On a mare’s nest, maybe,
You’d incubate a trivial mule baby.
Ambrose Bierce. Black Beetles in Amber: To "Colonel" Dan Burns (1892)
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I wrote a letter—a private letter—a short time ago, in which I expressed the belief that I should be out of debt within the next twelvemonth. If you make as much as usual for me out of the book, that belief will crystallize into a fact, and I shall be wholly out of debt. I am encoring you now.
It is out of that moderate letter that the Eighty-Two Thousand-Dollar mare's nest has developed.
Mark Twain. Letter to Frank E. Bliss (Nov. 4, 1897)
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