Word.ws English Dictionary

louse up

/ˈlaʊs ˈʌp/

louse up verb: to mess up; to confuse; to put into a state of disorder.

Verb

louse up (third-person singular simple present louses up, present participle lousing up, simple past and past participle loused up)

  1. (colloquial, idiomatic) To mess up; to confuse; to put into a state of disorder.
    • To be loused up by Humbolt was really a kind of privilege. It was like being the subject of a two-nosed portrait by Picasso, or an eviscerated chicken by Soutine.1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 3
    • The recent flu epidemic that loused up all my plans to see Pat Bond.1980 April 12, Nancy Walker, “Parents and Friends of Gays”, in Gay Community News, page 12
  2. (US, informal) To mistreat (someone).

Forms of louse up

third-person singular presentlouses up
present participlelousing up
past participleloused up
pastloused up

Questions about louse up

What does louse up mean?
Louse up means to mess up; to confuse; to put into a state of disorder.
What part of speech is louse up?
Louse up is a verb.
How do you pronounce louse up?
Louse up is pronounced /ˈlaʊs ˈʌp/ (UK).
What is the past tense of louse up?
The past tense of louse up is loused up.

Words near louse up in the dictionary

  1. louse around
  2. louse flies
  3. louse fly
  4. louse trap
  5. louse traps
  6. louse up
  7. louse-ridden
  8. louseberry
  9. louseborne
  10. loused
  11. loused around

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: louse up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-louse up.wav.

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