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• mess-up
  mess-up

  noun

  a blunder; state of confusion; mix-up.
• mess up
  mess up

  Create disorder in; muddle or ruin. For example, On rainy days the children really mess up the house , or He had a way of messing up his own business . [c. 1900]

mess-up

American  

[mes-uhp] / ˈmɛsˌʌp /

noun

• mess-ups
  plural

1. a blunder; state of confusion; mix-up.

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mess up Idioms  

1. Create disorder in; muddle or ruin. For example, On rainy days the children really mess up the house , or He had a way of messing up his own business . [c. 1900]

2. Make a mistake, especially from nervousness or confusion, as in He messed up and took the wrong dossier to the meeting , or Jill swore she would never mess up again . [ Colloquial ; early 1900s]

3. Beat up, manhandle, as in Joe got messed up in a barroom brawl . [ Slang ; early 1900s]

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• mess-ups
  plural

Etymology

Origin of mess-up

First recorded in 1900–05; noun use of verb phrase mess up

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

mess-up mess up mess-ups

"What Alan Garten did here is a pretty significant mess-up and again, as you just appropriately stated, it corroborates everything that I said."

From Salon ● Jul. 3, 2023

His wife Margaret said it was a "total mess-up" and said they felt "sick and very, very angry".

From BBC ● Jun. 5, 2020

Nick Faldo has a pretty eye-opening mess-up right off the bat on the telecast.

From Golf Digest ● Apr. 10, 2020

But I’m hoping to be surprised this year — just not in the same way as last year’s mess-up.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 1, 2018

The man I knew chucked up his business and left his home and risked his life because everybody was doing it, because it seemed there was a real mess-up, because one had to.

From Nonsenseorship by G. G. Putnam

It is just as easy to mess up the timing of a passive index swap as it is a stock trade.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026

“Unlike some of Nolan’s other films,” she wrote, “‘The Odyssey’ is not boring, thanks to the source material, which is impossible to mess up entirely.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026

But that can happen any place on any day, and nobody has to mess up an arid ecosystem to enjoy it.

From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2026

"I've been in a daze ever since I saw the announcement. Until more information comes out, I need to be careful not to mess up my daily life from overthinking," wrote X user Yachi.

From Barron's ● Jun. 26, 2026

I swallow a few mouthfuls of water and lose count of my strokes and mess up my breathing.

From "Love, Hate & Other Filters" by Samira Ahmed

Given the current state of AI and agents’ high-profile mess-ups, Palantir’s slop focus isn’t ungrounded in facts.

From Barron's ● May 6, 2026

The new update still produced some single-word mess-ups, while the older software had more gibberish phrases.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 29, 2026

In this scheme, individual mess-ups can become full-system failures.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 28, 2021

Also, make sure the money moves as directly as possible, avoiding any potential mess-ups that leave you with a withdrawal — and a tax nightmare — rather than a consolidation.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 17, 2021

A neat desk couldn’t disguise the inside of her notebook, which was a jumble of half-finished work, scratch-outs, and mess-ups.

From "Stella by Starlight" by Sharon M. Draper