muck up

verb

mucked up; mucking up; mucks up
Synonyms of muck upnext

transitive verb

: to make a mess of : bungle, spoil

Synonyms of muck up

Relevance
See All Synonyms & Antonyms in Thesaurus

Examples of muck up in a Sentence

I swear, she mucks up everything she tries.
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Sure, all this meddling does muck up the pacing somewhat, but who cares? — Jeff Spry, Space.com, 27 Apr. 2026 Teams continue to sag off Hart in the half court to try to muck up New York’s offense. — James L. Edwards Iii, New York Times, 10 Apr. 2026 Well, the first and third mucked up their stories with some overly contrived lore about cults and gods, and the fourth was an experiment for the formula that didn’t quite work. — Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 23 Jan. 2026 Amid the memory shortage that's mucking up component prices globally, at least Qualcomm has some promising news for folks hoping to pay less for a daily driver. — Florence Ion, PC Magazine, 7 May 2026 See All Example Sentences for muck up

Word History

First Known Use

1896, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of muck up was in 1896

Rhymes for muck up

See All Rhymes for muck up

Browse Nearby Words

mucksy
muck up
muckworm
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Muck up.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/muck%20up. Accessed 7 Jul. 2026.

Copy Citation
Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

Is that lie 'bald-faced' or 'bold-faced'?

'A' or 'an'? What about before 'h'? An Indefinite Article Guide

Why is '-ed' sometimes pronounced at the end of a word?

Commonly Misspelled Words

How to Use Em Dashes (—), En Dashes (–) , and Hyphens (-)
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

The Longest Long Words List

One-Word Oxymorons: Bittersweet, Spendthrift, and More

Ten Words Ending with a Silent ‘T’

12 Lovely and Unusual Words for the Natural World
See More

Popular

See More

Is that lie 'bald-faced' or 'bold-faced'?

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

The Longest Long Words List
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
hangman letters and game
Hangman Lightning Round Figure out which word fits in the blanks.
See All