Word.ws English Dictionary

messes about

messes about is the third-person singular simple present indicative of mess about.

Meaning of mess about

Verb

mess about (third-person singular simple present messes about, present participle messing about, simple past and past participle messed about)

  1. (intransitive) To misbehave
    • Kids! Stop messing about and do your work!
  2. (intransitive) To be in a casual non-committal relationship
    • Anna and I are just messing about; this isn't going to last.
  3. (transitive) To play with; to toy with; to waste the time of (a person).
    • Stop messing me about and give me a straight answer!
    Synonyms:
    mess around

Questions about messes about

What is messes about the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Messes about is the third-person singular simple present indicative of mess about.

Words near messes about in the dictionary

  1. Messerschmitt
  2. Messerschmitts
  3. Messersmith
  4. Messersmiths
  5. messes
  6. messes about
  7. messes around
  8. messes of greens
  9. messes of pottage
  10. messes up
  11. messes with

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: messes about (page history and authors); mess about (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: “messes about.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/messes_about. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.