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Hornet's nest   /hˈɔrnəts nɛst/   Listen
Hornet's nest

noun
1.
A highly contentious or hazardous situation.  Synonym: hornets' nest.
2.
Habitation for wasps or hornets.  Synonyms: hornets' nest, wasp's nest, wasps' nest.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Hornet's nest" Quotes from Famous Books



... old age, like a mouse into a pot of pitch. You say, Come to Rome; you might as well say to the crab, Fly. The crab says, Give me wings; I say, Give me back my health and my youth. If I write calmly against Luther I shall be called lukewarm; if I write as he does, I shall stir a hornet's nest. People think he can be put down by force. The more force you try, the stronger he will grow. Such disorders cannot be cured in that way. The Wickliffites in England were put down, but ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... limitations of the Convention were disregarded. Short of armed intervention there was no machinery for enforcing them, and the Boers knew perfectly well that there was no real desire on the part of an embarrassed Government to raise a hornet's nest by making the attempt. The British resident, with his nominally autocratic powers, was a mere impotent laughing stock. The ruined loyalists left the country, or remained to become the most embittered enemies of the British Government. In three years a new Convention ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... delighted to see you, Fleetwood. From the accounts we received we thought it was all up with you; and I came more with the hope of avenging you, than of seeing you alive; but now you shall have that satisfaction yourself. By Jove! we must blow up the hornet's nest without delay. When did you propose ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... foolish, Thomas. As if a man what's been stung by a wasp would care to sit himself down on a hornet's nest. ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin

... set this hornet's nest of theirs abuzz so suddenly?" I whispered, when the smoke-choke gave us liberty to speak without ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... would have made the Baptists happy with a half an acre, long since, and so, in his belief, scotched a hornet's nest. But he had never breathed any suggestion of the kind ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... in Silver Street — the regiments was out, They called us "Delhi Rebels", an' we answered "Threes about!" That drew them like a hornet's nest — we met them good an' large, The English at the double an' the Irish at the charge. Then it was: — "Belts . ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling



Words linked to "Hornet's nest" :   nidus, wasp's nest, situation, wasps' nest



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