to mess up
5
3.0
- phrasal verb
- /mɛs ʌp/
- Informal
- I accidentally messed up my room when I got ready for the party.
- mess up hair
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Watch on YouTubeYeah, I don't want to mess your hair up right.
- Yeah, I don't want to mess your hair up right.
- I don't want to mess up my hair though.
- It has a brush on the opposite end and this is the perfect contour that you cannot mess up for your lips.
- It's you can really mess up your makeup by the powder, but this one looks really good.
- But one of them grew up in a stifling house where nothing could be amiss, and that person wants creative space to to mess things up and to be creative.
Examples
-
I am, what is a good word, distressed by the way that we are messing up our planet.
-
I also like to mess up my hair a lot, so I'm going to mess up the top part just so it looks bigger.
-
There are some folks around who like to mess up your plans.
Fiction book (1990) -
Maybe W will become your president and mess things up just like before.
Blog text (24) -
The new people are messing everything up.
-
We messed up the line.
-
We don't wanna mess the place up.
-
Where the sea urchins were, something else is taking over, messing up the water.
Fiction book (1995) -
But one of them grew up in a stifling house where nothing could be amiss, and that person wants creative space to to mess things up and to be creative.
-
It has a brush on the opposite end and this is the perfect contour that you cannot mess up for your lips.
Synonyms
850
6.3
To make a mistake that ruins what you are doing
690
9.9
To make a serious mistake that ruins something
83
2.7
To make people confused and things messy
60
9.9
To do something badly and ruin how it turns out
18
6.4
To make a mistake that ruins something because you are careless
14
7.6
To ruin something by making mistakes or doing it badly
11
4.2
To fill a space with too many things so it looks messy
11
9.9
To cause a lot of damage and chaos to a place or thing
8
4.2
Disturb a smooth surface so small waves appear
8
1.0
To make something untidy or dirty
7
7.9
To make hair, clothes, or a surface messy
7
1.9
Mix things up so their order is not clear
6
3.8
Mix things together in a confused way
6
8.1
To make a mess of a plan or task by doing it badly
4
6.7
Do a job badly and make a mess of it
4
2.1
Make a place messy so things are not in order
2
7.9
To do something badly and ruin how it turns out
2
5.4
To make a mistake especially by forgetting words on stage
1
5.4
To make clothes or hair wrinkled and messy
1
4.5
To make something lose its order or structure
1
9.9
To ruin something by making a mistake or being careless
1
5.5
To make something untidy or not in its usual order
1
4.2
To make a smooth surface uneven or wrinkled
1
8.1
To make someone's hair or clothes look untidy
1
9.9
To do something so badly that it fails
1
9.9
To ruin something by a careless mistake
1
5.6
To make things untidy or cause confusion
To do something badly so it goes wrong
To ruin something completely by making serious mistakes
Antonyms
How Messy
Surface Forms
Morphology
mess + up
The meaning 'to spoil, damage, or ruin' follows directly from combining 'mess' (to make dirty, untidy, or disordered) with the particle 'up', which here adds a sense of completion/intensification; together they yield 'make a mess of' or 'ruin'. This verb+particle composition is a common, fairly literal pattern in English (and parallels exist in many languages), so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would likely infer the meaning.
Etymology
Mess up comes from the picture of turning something neat into a 'mess'. If you spill food or scatter papers you make a mess, and adding up shows the action is done, so it came to mean 'to make untidy'.