How to Use mess up in a Sentence
mess up
phrasal verb-
The wiring had been messed up and my lights had stopped working.
—Kunle Falayi, The Arizona Republic, 28 Feb. 2024
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My mind is all messed up and my emotions are all over the map.
—Minyvonne Burke, NBC News, 20 Mar. 2024
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It’s headed our way, and it’s set to mess up most of the weekend around here.
—Ian Livingston, Washington Post, 22 Sep. 2023
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There are a few mistakes that could mess up your French toast.
—Jessica Furniss, Southern Living, 20 Oct. 2023
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The pandemic messed up so many lives and then stupid things like movies.
—Brian Davids, The Hollywood Reporter, 7 Nov. 2023
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Maybe the local Keystone Kops of the Keystone State messed up.
—Ron Hart, Orange County Register, 16 July 2024
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That truly messes up what one side of the ball can do on the other team.
—Cam Inman, The Mercury News, 25 Jan. 2024
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This marks the third time an injury has messed up Shough’s season.
—Ryan Gaydos, Fox News, 30 Sep. 2023
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In previous years, the mishap could have messed up her entire meet.
—Glenn Graham, Baltimore Sun, 6 Feb. 2024
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But, to assess the quote from Wilson on its merits: No, the Orioles did not mess up.
—Jacob Calvin Meyer, Baltimore Sun, 17 June 2024
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Their accountant might have messed up and cost them some money.
—Ben Flanagan | Bflanagan@al.com, al, 20 July 2023
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DiCaprio’s character, Ernest Burkhart, has messed up part of a larger plan to rob the Osage of its wealth.
—Zack Sharf, Variety, 23 Oct. 2023
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Rental cars can suffer from an excess of slammed doors and trunks—slamming the latter can mess up the powered strut.
—Jonathan M. Gitlin, Ars Technica, 29 May 2024
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But this technology in the real world messes up all the time.
—Shira Ovide, Washington Post, 28 July 2023
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Giving too much melatonin, or giving it at the wrong time, could mess up your child's sleep schedule.
—Emily Elveru, Parents, 3 Aug. 2023
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Affleck hilariously stands in the back to try to mess up his turn.
—Antonia Debianchi, Peoplemag, 12 Feb. 2024
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That’s deeply messed up and would make the widespread voluntary wearing of hats even more baffling.
—Vulture, 11 Sep. 2023
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To most of the general public, short films are just the spanner that’ll always mess up your Oscars pool.
—Jada Yuan, Washington Post, 3 Feb. 2024
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Shift too many of those lithium ions out of the lithium cobalt oxide layer, and the whole structure of the layer messes up.
—WIRED, 27 Oct. 2023
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The French press method of making coffee is straightforward, cost-effective, easy to use, and hard to mess up.
—Tyler Shane, WIRED, 6 May 2024
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A lot of people mess up, which can be very aggravating.
—Shari Rudavsky, The Indianapolis Star, 29 Jan. 2024
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Which also means this is the cheesecake that’s impossible to mess up.
—The Bon Appétit Staff & Contributors, Bon Appétit, 6 Oct. 2023
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The result seems scrambled because the dictionary is messed up.
—Lance Eliot, Forbes, 25 Feb. 2024
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Wallace had messed up an important battle, or got blamed for it.
—Anna Deavere Smith, The Atlantic, 13 Nov. 2023
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Did a ransomware gang mess up by attacking a U.S. arm of China’s biggest bank?
—Leo Sands, Washington Post, 20 Feb. 2024
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And for our players and staff to not feel safe in an NCAA tournament environment, it’s messed up.
—Rebecca Cohen, NBC News, 4 Apr. 2024
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Because nobody’s doing it; not even the government, which is messed up.
—Jason Newman, Rolling Stone, 9 July 2024
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Why mess up a good thing by taking the economy too rapidly toward the target of 2 percent?
—Phillip Molnar, San Diego Union-Tribune, 23 June 2023
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This is a story of a really young person who is messed up and trying to figure out how to un-mess himself up.
—David Browne, Rolling Stone, 20 June 2024
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This extends to the ensemble as Found tries to be a show in which each character is more justifiably messed up than the next.
—Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Oct. 2023
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mess up.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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