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

Clyde’s first big boss move is to force Cane and Harlan to finish the job that Hoyt messed up with his aspirations of a bigger payout. —Maggie Fremont, Vulture, 19 June 2025

Shipping was messed up, factories closed, textiles and notions (all the fixtures and various sewing accouterments) became incredibly difficult to source. —Rachel Elspeth Gross, Forbes.com, 16 June 2025

There are some bugs, and there's always a risk of messing up your iPhone on an early version meant for developers. —Julian Chokkattu, Wired News, 10 June 2025

The latest: Those real estate tax bills were sent over the weekend after a system error messed up at least 33,000 taxpayer records, per a city release. —Sabrina Moreno, Axios, 20 May 2025

Rhymes for mess up

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