as in fumbling
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 mucking up
What's mucking up the process is a telepathic outlier named The Mule (Pilou Asbæk), whose ravenous appetite for galactic dominance has created anomalies in Seldon's branching prognostications of how this whole ordeal will unfold.
—
Jeff Spry, Space.com, 29 Aug. 2025
The hydrogen flow keeps vaporized tin from mucking up the system’s optics.
—IEEE Spectrum, 12 June 2023
Jeff Spry, Space.com, 29 Aug. 2025
The hydrogen flow keeps vaporized tin from mucking up the system’s optics.
—IEEE Spectrum, 12 June 2023
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mucking up
Verb
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Boise State played an uneven first half in Tampa, fumbling twice and committing a huge penalty that gave life to a South Florida touchdown drive.—
Shaun Goodwin,
Idaho Statesman,
29 Aug. 2025
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Facial recognition can help reduce wait times, eliminate the hassle of fumbling with documents and free up staff to focus on higher-value service.—
Jeff Kim,
Forbes.com,
27 Aug. 2025
Verb
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Best of all though is Reeves, channeling his own 1989 comic past from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure or a bit of Todd Higgins from Parenthood to bring deadpan delight as the well-meaning but constantly screwing up angel trying to do good but being so bad at it.—
Pete Hammond,
Deadline,
7 Sep. 2025
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As Nick in the present-adjacent day sure knows a hell of a lot about Dante Alighieri, perhaps the best person to criticize him and recognize his gaps in logic and knowledge, and how Nick is so profoundly screwing up his own life, would be Dante himself.—
Ryan Lattanzio,
IndieWire,
3 Sep. 2025
Verb
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As health restrictions discouraged people from blowing directly into instruments, Gajewski and Brown reimagined the design.—
Rupendra Brahambhatt,
Interesting Engineering,
14 Sep. 2025
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Soldiers have also been spotted in parks carrying out tasks typically assigned to gardeners and landscapers – shoveling mulch, blowing leaves and scooping up trash.—
Cybele Mayes-Osterman,
USA Today,
14 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Mucking up.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mucking%20up. Accessed 16 Sep. 2025.
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