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 + on
She'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 The fear of messing up—FOMU—can keep you from tackling even the simplest DIY project. Lauren Phillips, Better Homes & Gardens, 21 May 2024 Last summer, when the Hollywood writers’ strike had shut down film and television production, a crew of scenic painters at the legendary Fox Studio Lot took advantage of the lull to mess up New York City. Roger Vincent, Los Angeles Times, 17 May 2024 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

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 31 May. 2024.

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