mess with

phrasal verb

messed with; messing with; messes with

informal

1

: to cause trouble for (someone) : to deal with (someone) in a way that may cause anger or violence

I wouldn't want to mess with him.

You'd better not be messing with me.

2

chiefly US : to deal with or be involved with (something that causes or that could cause trouble)

The company doesn't want to mess with small distributors.

He doesn't want to mess with cocaine anymore.

3

: to handle or play with (something) in a careless way : to mess around with (something)

Don't mess with the camera.

Examples of mess with in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

McBride did, in fact, want to mess with his audience a bit. —Alison Herman, Variety, 5 May 2025

My Bad: Ignore me, actually Baseball, as an old friend once said, exists to mess with you. —Ken Rosenthal, New York Times, 1 May 2025

Take-Two has no qualms with messing with the entire industry as everyone sits around and waits for a GTA 6 release date. —Paul Tassi, Forbes.com, 29 Apr. 2025

The superstar's mom and 'Matriarch' author opens up like never before sharing the 'lie' about her family that hurt her the most over the years Don't mess with this matriarch. —Janine Rubenstein, People.com, 22 Apr. 2025