mess up

phrasal verb

messed up; messing up; messes up

informal

: to make a mistake : to do something incorrectly

About halfway into the recipe, I realized that I had messed up, and I had to start over.

—often + on

She's afraid she'll mess up on the test.

I messed up on my first attempt.

Examples of mess up in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

His whole right side is just messed up; his left, his right leg is messed up. —

Abc News, ABC News, 3 Jan. 2025 Plus, sometimes the text box size messes up the page formatting, creating extra spaces between sentences. —

Sheena Vasani, The Verge, 28 Dec. 2024 Because of that, Colorado took out disability insurance in case the players get hurt in the Alamo Bowl and mess up their draft stock. —

Ryan Gaydos, Fox News, 26 Dec. 2024 The people that are fun to hear about are the people who are really, really smart, but then really messing up in their personal life and are making big mistakes. —

Katie Campione, Deadline, 21 Dec. 2024 See all Example Sentences for mess up