a dog's breakfast
idiom

- something or someone that looks extremely untidy, or something that is very badly done

(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

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For dog lovers, little imagination is required to understand the origin of the expression "a dog's breakfast". For others, like cat lovers who are accustomed to tidy eaters, the reason is that dogs have zero manners when it comes to eating. And after a night of sleep, in their frantic effort to eat as much as possible in world record time, the result of the morning meal is often a big mess. Thus we like to say a dog's breakfast when something is untidy or messed up.

They say dogs are man's best friend. And that certainly seems to be the case by the looks of the numerous idioms containing the word dog. Here are a few examples:

- it's a dog's life = something that you say which means that life is hard and unpleasant (I had one meeting after another today. It's a dog's life!)

- sick as a dog = to be very sick (I caught this flu that's been going around and now I'm sick as a dog)

- like a dog with a bone = to refuse to stop thinking about or talking about a subject (When it comes to politics, he's like a dog with a bone)

- call off the dogs = to stop attacking or criticizing someone (Let's call off the dogs and let the programmers do their job)

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SYNONYMS

a mess, chaos, debris, disorder, disarray, a sight

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SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation

"At the end of the workshop the conference room looked like a dog's breakfast."