Hames
A mess, a botched job. Almost always in the idiom 'to make a hames of' something - to do it wrongly or to ruin it. 'He made a complete hames of the parking.'
Etymology
From the literal noun 'hames' - the two curved pieces of a horse harness that sit on either side of the collar, to which the traces attach. Fitting them correctly was a skilled task, and a badly-fitted set was the standard image of agricultural failure. The Hiberno-English idiom 'to make a hames of' was working metaphorically by the nineteenth century. The underlying harness word is itself Middle English, with possible Middle Dutch roots ('haem', horse-collar).
In a sentence
"He's after making a hames of the car - reversed straight into the gatepost."
Historical notes
Hames is a useful case of a word that survives in idiom long after its literal referent has receded. Most contemporary Irish speakers who say 'a complete hames' have never seen a hame, let alone tried to fit one to a draught horse. The metaphor survives because the alternative options - mess, disaster, balls-up - all have their own registers, and hames sits in a particular quiet, slightly rueful space the others do not occupy.
Sources
- Dolan, Terence Patrick. A Dictionary of Hiberno-English, page 119. Gill Books. · dictionary