mess up

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

There’s no climate change on these shows — no Canadian wildfires to mess up the perfect sunset lighting — and the weather is always hot enough to jump in a lake but never sweltering. — Kathryn Vanarendonk, Vulture, 19 Aug. 2026

Center Luke Fortner messed up what would have been a first-down pass getting caught downfield after Young had fooled the defense — but apparently Fortner, too — on a run-pass option. — Scott Fowler, Charlotte Observer, 16 Aug. 2026

And yet, besieged by the same afflictions of greed, self-interest and a comical inability to work together, horse racing is doing its damndest to similarly mess up its very good thing. — Dana O’Neil, CNN Money, 5 Aug. 2026

Or maybe Beard is just all messed up because of some as-yet unexplained tension with his wife, Jane. — Michael Schneider, Variety, 5 Aug. 2026

Rhymes for mess up

• backup
• blowup
• breakup
• buildup
• checkup
• cleanup
• holdup
• hookup
• lineup
• lockup
• makeup
• markup