messy
Americanadjective
-
messier,
comparative
-
messiest
superlative
-
characterized by a dirty, untidy, or disordered condition.
a messy room.
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causing a mess.
a messy recipe; messy work.
-
embarrassing, difficult, or unpleasant.
a messy political situation.
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characterized by moral or psychological confusion.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of messy
Explanation
Messy things are sloppy, disorganized, or dirty. Your messy room isn't bothering anyone but you — but your messy clothes might not be appropriate for your cousin's formal wedding. When a house is messy, it's cluttered and untidy — there might be clothes on the floor or dishes on the table and counters. A messy notebook could be jammed with papers in no particular order, and a child's messy face may very well be covered with chocolate ice cream. Messy dates from the 1840s, and its figurative meaning, "unethical" or "confused," like a messy divorce, came along in the 1920s.
Vocabulary lists containing 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:
Understanding that process could bring scientists closer to explaining how the brain computes the busy and often messy world around us.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 18, 2026
Mattel unveils a pink Angel Reese No. 5 jersey on the doll with signature Reebok basketball shoes during a full-circle moment following her messy departure from Chicago.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
But just the idea of a comeback has stirred nostalgia among people who remember the MySpace days of more than 20 years ago as a place where personal pages were messy, loud, and deeply individual.
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2026
I used to leave my workshop so messy that our engineering-major son would spend a day organizing it whenever he came home from college.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 8, 2026
The farther south the forest went, the more dry birch and pine would give way to the swampy shores of the messy, meandering Sogozha.
From Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack
Love has always been central to FLO's music, but on this album they explore its messier realities, with nights out providing the backdrop for stories of heartbreak, healing and friendship.
From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026
It becomes a little compressed, a little messier and somehow more itself.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2026
Sometimes, the answer lies in those messier grey areas.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 20, 2026
Cleanup efforts at a fire-ravaged cold storage warehouse in Boyle Heights just got messier.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 4, 2026
When they were little I felt I had to protect them from certain things about myself, the fear, the messier parts of the marriages, the days of nothing.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
The settlement that was announced Monday between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni looked like the end of one of Hollywood’s messiest recent legal fights.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 7, 2026
Of all the fronts in the AI wars—funding, electricity, chips—the messiest is the fight for human capital.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 25, 2026
While Marvel certainly isn’t the most esteemed studio in contemporary filmmaking, it’s turning into the messiest.
From Salon ● Jul. 25, 2025
The messiest divorce in Seahawks history will be all but forgotten as two Super Bowl winners reminisce on the good times and block out the gloomy ones.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 28, 2023
The area around my bed was the messiest part of the room, except for the area under my bed, which was even worse.
From "Kira-Kira" by Cynthia Kadohata
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.
