How to Use untidy in a Sentence

untidy

adjective
  • I can never find anything in this untidy office.
  • Then trim any untidy hairs that are too curly, or are longer than the rest.
    Glamour, 10 May 2019
  • These are just a few of the many untidy and chaotic but oh-so-fun events that are part of this year’s Messy Fest.
    Alison Stanton, azcentral, 12 Sep. 2019
  • That same day, Self’s cellmate complained that Self was untidy and asked him to clean up the cell.
    oregonlive, 10 Apr. 2020
  • In a way, my medium-size bag’s untidy insides were a cry for help.
    Madeline Fass, Vogue, 28 Mar. 2018
  • In addition, the weight of the seed pods tends to eventually pull the plants over and make the planting look more untidy.
    Dan Gill, NOLA.com, 13 May 2017
  • Short, skinny and untidy, Deku looks more like a nerdy teenager than a comic book hero.
    Charles Solomon, latimes.com, 2 July 2018
  • As the crowds milled throughout Outside Lands on the festival’s first day, the grass was trampled, but not untidy.
    Melia Russell, SFChronicle.com, 9 Aug. 2019
  • But the bikes faced vandalism and theft, and were left in untidy piles that city authorities had to deal with.
    Jane Li, Quartz, 19 June 2019
  • And since this is a McDonagh play, things will become — untidy.
    Dan Barry, New York Times, 4 Mar. 2020
  • So was the untidy fact that the shooter himself, like most mass murderers, was white himself.
    Bob Moser, New Republic, 6 Oct. 2017
  • Fishback spent the week in a small room with an untidy roommate, according to police records.
    C.j. Chivers, New York Times, 21 Feb. 2023
  • My classwork was very untidy, and my handwriting was the despair of my teachers.
    Valerie Strauss, Washington Post, 14 Mar. 2018
  • Evans said that Rosendorff appeared at their front door anxious and untidy—his voice was shaky, his shirt was untucked, and his hair uncombed.
    Beth Mole, Ars Technica, 8 Nov. 2022
  • Putting the ball in play after a long at-bat sparked an inning that finished with four runs, in spite of some untidy Braves’ unraveling.
    Bryce Millercolumnist, San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 May 2022
  • After an untidy start to the first half, Caballero had an absolute shocker to gift Croatia the lead.
    SI.com, 21 June 2018
  • Bad parents of their own extended childhoods, struggling with the second, or third, act of untidy lives.
    Elizabeth Barber, Harper's Magazine, 2 Feb. 2024
  • The bamboo viscose construction just seems to lend itself to a rumpled, untidy look.
    Sarah Bradley, Health, 28 Mar. 2023
  • These untidy ends are more provocative than the moments of exposition.
    Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 12 Oct. 2023
  • Messy hair, noisy kids and untidy spaces have intruded into our work lives via our screens like never before.
    Lisa Bennett, Forbes, 23 Feb. 2023
  • The iconic prologue – a meticulous mix of jazz, athleticism, violence and grace — is off-point and untidy.
    Lee Williams | For The Oregonian/oregonlive, oregonlive, 14 Oct. 2019
  • Anousheh: Grappling with this question has led me down a very untidy linguistic rabbit hole, but the vague answer is that many of the world’s languages do NOT use gendered pronouns.
    Washington Post, 31 Jan. 2022
  • Croatia equalized in the fourth minute with another untidy goal.
    Gerald Imray, chicagotribune.com, 1 July 2018
  • In other words: The blockchain could bring some discipline to the notoriously untidy U.S. health care framework.
    Sy Mukherjee, Fortune, 9 Jan. 2018
  • His son was in his underwear in an untidy room littered with prescription bottles.
    Time, 8 Dec. 2017
  • Not only can this make our homes look untidy, but said dust, dirt, and pet hair can also exacerbate allergies.
    Sharon Brandwein, Southern Living, 17 Jan. 2024
  • Before Einstein, there was an untidy collection of equations to describe how light behaves from the point of view of a moving observer.
    Quanta Magazine, 30 Aug. 2017
  • In what was an untidy opening, both sides lacked an element of creativity, not dissimilar to the first leg.
    SI.com, 19 July 2017
  • Horton’s untidy, rampant suburban garden swamps fences and pergolas and seems to rise like a tide toward the red-roofed houses themselves.
    Jenny Uglow, The New York Review of Books, 16 Mar. 2020
  • The sleek magnetic closure is preferable to untidy clasps and straps, while the foldable design can create a stand with two different viewing angles.
    Stefanie Waldek, Travel + Leisure, 20 June 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'untidy.' 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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