spent the vacation day just messing around
a guy who goes to the health club mainly to mess around with the women
Recent Examples on the WebHam, cheese, potatoes, and a cheesy cream sauce combine to create scalloped potatoes and ham, a casserole that is not messing around.—Karen Schroeder-Rankin, Southern Living, 25 Mar. 2024 The versatile machine also converts into a handheld vacuum to clean above-floor messes around the house and in the car.—Isabel Garcia, Peoplemag, 22 Mar. 2024 Yes, the two-time champ, No. 1 Bohemian Special (Wiedemann), is not messing around this year.—The Enquirer, 21 Mar. 2024 Eisner turned off the High Street next to University College and opposite All Souls College—the heart of medieval Oxford, where students have messed around for eight hundred years—into an alley just wide enough for a bike or two.—Sam Knight, The New Yorker, 12 Mar. 2024 Also, every studio needs a big tub of random percussion instruments and bells and rattles and blocks that are great to mess around with and invariably find their way onto scores just to liven things up.—Lily Moayeri, SPIN, 15 Feb. 2024 Jennifer Crumbley testified that her son was messing around and had an ongoing joke with his dad that the house was haunted, and that ghosts nicknamed Veronica and Boris lived there.—Gina Kaufman, Detroit Free Press, 7 Mar. 2024 For a startup trying to bring back the woolly mammoth—or at least something like it—a fable about the dangers of foolhardy scientists messing around with the genetics of long-dead creatures is an obvious reference point.—Matt Reynolds, WIRED, 21 Feb. 2024 Green was messing around, but again put the meaning of this season into perspective.—Shayna Rubin, The Mercury News, 6 Feb. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mess around.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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