as in fumbled
to make or do (something) in a clumsy or unskillful way
I swear, she mucks up everything she tries
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Recent Examples of mucked up
Well, the first and third mucked up their stories with some overly contrived lore about cults and gods, and the fourth was an experiment for the formula that didn’t quite work.
—
Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 23 Jan. 2026
Lawmakers need to get back to Washington to end the government shutdown - a shutdown that has mucked up travel plans around the country by contributing to widespread flight delays.
—Zachary Schermele, USA Today, 11 Nov. 2025
Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 23 Jan. 2026
Lawmakers need to get back to Washington to end the government shutdown - a shutdown that has mucked up travel plans around the country by contributing to widespread flight delays.
—Zachary Schermele, USA Today, 11 Nov. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mucked up
Verb
-
And the counseling office fumbled it.—
Sharyn Alfonsi,
CBS News,
2 Mar. 2026
-
Cornell fumbled with Mercader’s clothing, trying to find them.—
Josh Ireland,
Harpers Magazine,
24 Feb. 2026
Verb
-
That might be kind of screwed up.—
Patrick Saunders,
Denver Post,
21 Feb. 2026
-
That seems like our priorities are screwed up.—
Terry Gross,
NPR,
19 Feb. 2026
Verb
-
In a sign that the dinosaur fossil market remains strong, a rare young dinosaur skeleton blew past its $4 million to $6 million Sotheby’s preauction estimate in July and ended up fetching more than $30 million in a bidding frenzy, including fees and costs.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
2 Mar. 2026
-
During Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June last year, the US blew through about a quarter of its THAAD missile interceptors.—
Mostafa Salem,
CNN Money,
2 Mar. 2026
Verb
-
What father would ever allow such devastation, assuring fellow patriarchs that their lives without sons would be ruined forever?—
David John Chávez,
Mercury News,
3 Mar. 2026
-
Burd and Batalucco have essentially ruined their home by placing cameras everywhere so Friends Keep Secrets can always be capturing whoever is wherever.—
Fran Hoepfner,
Vulture,
3 Mar. 2026
Verb
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Karaban almost had a costly turnover on an inbound play with 14 seconds left, but the Huskies fouled up three and Mulready split his free throw attempts, setting up the game-clinching freebies from the Huskies’ captain.—
Joe Arruda,
Hartford Courant,
15 Feb. 2026
Verb
-
They were met with savage brutality, with as many as 30,000 murdered by their own government.—
Arkansas Online,
Arkansas Online,
3 Mar. 2026
-
Grace, who suffered the trauma of seeing her mother murdered right in front of her as a teen, protects Emily and tries to help her escape, only for the little girl to morph into a T-Virus monster that Leon has to incapacitate.—
Jennifer Maas,
Variety,
2 Mar. 2026
Verb
-
Regardless, some of today’s foremost directors are channeling the days before bingeing applied to content, before art was dubbed content — back when all audiences needed was slo-mo running on a beach.—
Jami Ganz,
New York Daily News,
28 Feb. 2026
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And Paramount’s desire to buy WBD’s linear cable channels derailed the plan that was in the works to spin them off into a standalone company dubbed Discovery Global.—
Brent Lang,
Variety,
27 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Mucked up.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mucked%20up. Accessed 6 Mar. 2026.
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