Word.ws English Dictionary

mess-up

/ˈmɛsˌʌp/

mess-up noun: a mistake or fiasco; something that has gone wrong.

Noun

mess-up (plural mess-ups)

  1. (informal) A mistake or fiasco; something that has gone wrong.
  2. (informal) A person who makes many mistakes.

Synonyms of mess-up

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of mess-up

pluralmess-ups

Origin of mess-up

Deverbal from mess up.

Questions about mess-up

What does mess-up mean?
Mess-up means a mistake or fiasco; something that has gone wrong.
What part of speech is mess-up?
Mess-up is a noun.
How do you pronounce mess-up?
Mess-up is pronounced /ˈmɛsˌʌp/.
What is the plural of mess-up?
The plural of mess-up is mess-ups.

Words near mess-up in the dictionary

  1. mess with the bull and you get the horns
  2. mess with the bull, get the horns
  3. Mess-John
  4. Mess-Johns
  5. mess-kitted
  6. mess-up
  7. mess-ups
  8. messa
  9. Messac
  10. message
  11. message board

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mess-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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Cite this entry: “mess-up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mess-up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.