mess up
phrasal verb
messed up; messing up; messes up
informal
: to make a mistake : to do something incorrectly
About halfway into the recipe, I realized that I had messed up, and I had to start over.
—often + onShe's afraid she'll mess up on the test.
I messed up on my first attempt.
Examples of mess up in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Jack Harlow Gets Some Puppy Love Before Heading to the Met Gala
14 hr 54 min ago
Jack Harlow can't resist an adorable pooch — and isn't scared of messing up his polished Met Gala look with some puppy slobber.
—
Lindsay Kimble, Peoplemag, 7 May 2024
The French press method of making coffee is straightforward, cost-effective, easy to use, and hard to mess up.
—Tyler Shane, WIRED, 6 May 2024
There’s a lot of value here because the consequences of something getting messed up are expensive or dangerous or both, but the tasks are repetitive and sometimes risky and generally don’t require all that much human insight or creativity.
—IEEE Spectrum, 30 Apr. 2024
Our immigration policy is totally messed up, and has been for a long time, but that is different than a laser-focus on the physical border as an existential threat to our democracy.
—Anita Chabria, Los Angeles Times, 2 May 2024
Spilker said a hardware failure, perhaps as a result of age or because it was hit by radiation, likely messed up a small section of code in the memory of the computer.
—Denise Chow, NBC News, 26 Apr. 2024
Crucially, if the AI messes up, users can still go into ReelSphere to edit information.
—Emilia David, The Verge, 11 Apr. 2024
When their strike was over, sanitation workers cleaned the mess up themselves.
—Eric Lach, The New Yorker, 8 Apr. 2024
And for our players and staff to not feel safe in an NCAA tournament environment, it’s messed up.
—Rebecca Cohen, NBC News, 4 Apr. 2024
Lindsay Kimble, Peoplemag, 7 May 2024
The French press method of making coffee is straightforward, cost-effective, easy to use, and hard to mess up.
—Tyler Shane, WIRED, 6 May 2024
There’s a lot of value here because the consequences of something getting messed up are expensive or dangerous or both, but the tasks are repetitive and sometimes risky and generally don’t require all that much human insight or creativity.
—IEEE Spectrum, 30 Apr. 2024
Our immigration policy is totally messed up, and has been for a long time, but that is different than a laser-focus on the physical border as an existential threat to our democracy.
—Anita Chabria, Los Angeles Times, 2 May 2024
Spilker said a hardware failure, perhaps as a result of age or because it was hit by radiation, likely messed up a small section of code in the memory of the computer.
—Denise Chow, NBC News, 26 Apr. 2024
Crucially, if the AI messes up, users can still go into ReelSphere to edit information.
—Emilia David, The Verge, 11 Apr. 2024
When their strike was over, sanitation workers cleaned the mess up themselves.
—Eric Lach, The New Yorker, 8 Apr. 2024
And for our players and staff to not feel safe in an NCAA tournament environment, it’s messed up.
—Rebecca Cohen, NBC News, 4 Apr. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mess up.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near mess up
Cite this Entry
“Mess up.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mess%20up. Accessed 18 May. 2024.
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