mess
Americannoun
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messes
plural
-
a dirty, untidy, or disordered condition.
The room was in a mess.
- Antonyms:
- order
-
a person or thing that is dirty, untidy, or disordered.
-
a state of embarrassing confusion.
My affairs are in a mess.
-
an unpleasant or difficult situation.
She got into a mess driving without a license.
- Synonyms:
- pickle, plight, predicament
-
a dirty or untidy mass, litter, or jumble.
a mess of papers.
-
a group regularly taking their meals together.
-
the meal so taken.
-
Naval. messroom.
-
a quantity of food sufficient for a dish or a single occasion.
to pick a mess of sweet corn for dinner.
-
a sloppy or unappetizing preparation of food.
-
a dish or quantity of soft or liquid food.
to cook up a nice mess of pottage.
-
a person whose life or affairs are in a state of confusion, especially a person with a confused or disorganized moral or psychological outlook.
verb (used with object)
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messes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
messed,
past participle, past
-
messing
present participle
-
to make dirty or untidy (often followed byup ).
Don't mess the room.
-
to make a mess or muddle of (affairs, responsibilities, etc.) (often followed byup ).
They messed the deal.
-
to supply with meals, as military personnel.
-
to treat roughly; beat up (usually followed byup ).
The gang messed him up.
verb (used without object)
-
messes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
messed,
past participle, past
-
messing
present participle
-
to eat in company, especially as a member of a mess.
-
to make a dirty or untidy mess.
verb phrase
-
mess up
-
mess around / about
-
Informal. to busy oneself without purpose or plan; work aimlessly or halfheartedly; putter.
-
Informal. to waste time; loaf.
-
Informal. to meddle or interfere.
-
Informal. to involve or associate oneself, especially for immoral or unethical purposes.
His wife accused him of messing around with gamblers.
-
Slang. to trifle sexually; philander.
-
-
mess in / with to intervene officiously; meddle.
You'll get no thanks for messing in the affairs of others.
noun
-
a state of confusion or untidiness, esp if dirty or unpleasant
the house was in a mess
-
a chaotic or troublesome state of affairs; muddle
his life was a mess
-
informal a dirty or untidy person or thing
-
archaic a portion of food, esp soft or semiliquid food
-
a place where service personnel eat or take recreation
an officers' mess
-
a group of people, usually servicemen, who eat together
-
the meal so taken
-
a material gain involving the sacrifice of a higher value
verb
-
to muddle or dirty
-
(intr) to make a mess
-
to interfere; meddle
-
(intr; often foll by with or together) military to group together, esp for eating
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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messsimple
-
messessimple
-
have messedperfect
-
has messedperfect
-
am messingprogressive
-
are messingprogressive
-
is messingprogressive
-
have been messingperfect progressive
-
has been messingperfect progressive
Past
-
messedsimple
-
had messedperfect
-
was messingprogressive
-
were messingprogressive
-
had been messingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of mess
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English mes, from Old French: “course at a meal,” from Late Latin missus “(something) sent” (i.e., put on the table), noun use of past participle of Latin mittere “to send”
Explanation
A mess is a generally dirty state, like your bedroom, your hair, or anything else that's untidy. If you make a huge mess when you cook, you probably try to get someone else to do the clean-up. In addition to describing a jumble of stuff, mess can describe a confused or difficult situation, like the mess your finances are in if you have seven credit cards. When you mess something up, you cause disorder and maybe even wreck something, like a friendship you messed up by gossiping. And you might eat in a mess hall, a cafeteria for members of the armed forces — and it's probably very neat and orderly, not messy.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“It could be a mess because I’ve never formally studied, and I’m not a ‘curator, curator,’ but in any field sometimes an outsider can bring in a new breeze.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2026
Ikitau then flew over for his second after the Boks made a mess of a high ball kicked through, but the lead lasted just three minutes.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2026
That would be a mess, and probably not a foreign debacle we only read about.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026
And, after digging through layers of internet ugliness, I found the last thing I expected: a reason to believe we might just make it out of our current mess.
From Slate ● Sep. 22, 2026
And Jonn should feel responsible for this mess, he thought.
From "Rowan of Rin" by Emily Rodda
Meta settles teen safety suit, the U.S.-Canada trade war escalates, and Scott Bessent messes around in the markets again.
From Slate ● Aug. 29, 2026
Often boards will ignore past mistakes if they think the executive won’t create messes on their own watch, said Janine Yancey, an employment lawyer and founder of HR compliance firm Emtrain.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
“For example, after cleaning a window, I’ll let the paper towel dry and save it under the sink. Later, I use it to clean up muddy messes or pet accidents.”
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 7, 2026
Built in part from five years of therapy notes, the album finds Smith revisiting moments of struggle, recovery and, as he puts it, "all the sort of messes in between".
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026
Crazy baby cousin always takes my things and messes with them.
From "Harbor Me" by Jacqueline Woodson
The tacos had not, at that point, been messed with.
From Salon ● Oct. 3, 2026
Moderna in its earliest days didn’t want to become “the company that made the world believe mRNA would not work because we messed it up,” the CEO said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
They tried to put us off but they messed with the wrong ones.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
But I didn’t know some of them, and I messed up a few times.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 7, 2026
“The other day—you said you messed up with someone at school. Did you try again?”
From "Bye Forever, I Guess" by Jodi Meadows
Flavio issued fierce denials as Lula took to the campaign trail clutching a statue of the saint, declaring that "messing" with her was "unacceptable."
From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2026
I kept messing up and saying that when we started working on the show, too.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2026
"When they tell me 'you're messing up', it's because they're right. And when they tell me I've played well, it's because I have. I don't listen to what's said outside."
From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2026
“We’ve got to be messing up the exchange rate or something, right?” the Virginia theater fan recalls.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026
The crew immediately yelled several colorful phrases as they tried to prevent the PVC from messing up the newly poured concrete.
From "Boy 2.0" by Tracey Baptiste
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
