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Hornets' nest   /hˈɔrnəts nɛst/   Listen
Hornets' nest

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






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Hornets' nest" Quotes from Famous Books



... forces of nature and emotion seemed to be drawing him away from peaceful England towards a hornets' nest, and he—his father—would be powerless ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... morning—the meeting was to begin at two o'clock—and set to work at once. While we were sweeping up the debris we noticed insects flying round overhead. For a while, however, we gave them little heed; Addison merely remarked that there was probably a hornets' nest up in the loft, but that hornets would not molest any one if they were left alone. But after we had kindled a fire in the stove and the long funnel had begun to heat the upper part of the room, they began to fly in still greater numbers. Soon one of them darted ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... Jaggard foreseen the tantrums and contradictions he caused some commentators—Mr. Payne Collier, for instance—he would doubtless have substituted 'By William Shakespeare and others' for 'By William Shakespeare.' Thus he might have saved his reputation, and this hornets' nest which now and then rouses itself afresh around his aged ghost of three ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... each other, after which one of the young men and the young woman approached a large tree, and he poked with a stick into what was probably a hole near its roots, and Mr. Archibald supposed that the discussion concerned a snake-hole or a hornets' nest. Then Margery and the other young woman came up, and they looked at the hole. Now the whole company walked into the woods and disappeared. In about ten minutes Mr. Archibald finished his cigar and was thinking of following his wife ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton

... conquer the British, they at least kept them in a hornets' nest. If they could not drive them out of South Carolina, they could keep them there, which was nearly as good a thing to do, because every soldier that Cornwallis had to keep in the South would have been sent to some other part of the ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston

... kicked up a hornets' nest," he smiled weakly to himself, too tired and ill to care whether the hornets stung or not. Presently Locke returned. "I tell you, Hal, it won't do; that Indian isn't a fit representative of ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson



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



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