How to Use hot mess in a Sentence

hot mess

noun
  • His sense of humor is just the holy water to my hot mess.
    — Staff Author, PEOPLE, 4 Sep. 2025
  • Our goal is to avoid leaving a hot mess behind when we are gone.
    — Michelle Singletary, Washington Post, 17 Nov. 2023
  • If your phone’s home screen is a hot mess, folders to the rescue!
    — Kim Komando, Fox News, 4 Oct. 2024
  • Louisville was, to put it nicely, a hot mess for much of the season.
    — Nancy Armour, USA TODAY, 23 Mar. 2023
  • But when it's disrupted, your skin can look and feel like a hot mess.
    — April Benshosan, Women's Health, 23 Feb. 2023
  • The narrator, Sara, is frankly a hot mess.
    — The Know, Denver Post, 21 Dec. 2025
  • But the company has been a hot mess lately.
    — Phil Wahba, Fortune, 9 Feb. 2026
  • Each episode has been drama-filled and has turned into a hot mess with all of the plot twists.
    — Giana Levy, refinery29.com, 29 Oct. 2024
  • Superman was a hot mess of a movie, but fans and critics alike raved about it.
    — Erik Kain, Forbes.com, 4 Aug. 2025
  • Comfort, convenience and a hot mess pile of clothes to rummage through.
    — Dave Schilling, Los Angeles Times, 17 Nov. 2023
  • The Clippers are a hot mess, a megayacht that can’t find its way out of the harbor.
    — Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 6 Nov. 2025
  • After more than three months of front-running, the Rangers are nothing but a hot mess.
    — Tim Cowlishaw, Dallas News, 5 Sep. 2023
  • The result is that a spam filter looks at this hot mess of an email and basically gives up.
    — Ron Amadeo, Ars Technica, 4 Dec. 2023
  • The world watches as our hot mess lukewarms, as all our quirks suddenly charmless.
    — Raven Smith, Vogue, 15 Nov. 2023
  • Others were kind of a hot mess on opening night and could have benefited from a bit more time in the studio.
    — Lauren Warnecke, Chicago Tribune, 20 Apr. 2023
  • Across the country, the weather is a hot mess, but some people are riding the heat wave without breaking a sweat.
    — Charlie Carballo, WWD, 11 July 2024
  • So our best models of the proton tell us that gluons are hot messes of strong force interactions.
    — Paul Sutter, Space.com, 24 Dec. 2024
  • Avoid making a literal hot mess by blending a small amount of milk and the chocolates, then add more milk once it's combined.
    — Cody Godwin, USA Today, 4 Nov. 2025
  • Every couple of years, another five-hour mix of celebration and hot mess.
    — Matthew Futterman, The Athletic, 26 July 2024
  • Ray Wold stuns judges with ‘hot mess’ knife-throwing act Ray Wold has put mother-son bonding on a knife's edge.
    — USA TODAY, 7 June 2023
  • The first period in Game 1 was a defensive hot mess that buried the Cats in a 3-1 hole.
    — Greg Cote, Miami Herald, 6 May 2025
  • For starters, the bathroom situations are usually a hot mess, so having feminine wipes on deck is a must.
    — Andrea Navarro, Glamour, 12 Apr. 2024
  • The city council in the nation’s second-largest municipality is a hot mess.
    — Reis Thebault, Washington Post, 17 June 2023
  • Not to mention, Van Pelt’s top running back can’t stop fumbling, and the offensive line remains a hot mess.
    — Andrew Callahan, Boston Herald, 22 Dec. 2024
  • We first encounter Anna, a bit of a hot mess who hops from one house-sitting gig to the next in New York City.
    — Alexandra Jhamb Burns, Condé Nast Traveler, 10 Apr. 2026
  • Basically, Anthony Weaver’s unit has been a hot mess this season.
    — Omar Kelly october 23, Miami Herald, 23 Oct. 2025
  • The leak seems especially likely given that the Until Dawn movie just hit theaters and appears to be a hot mess.
    — Erik Kain, Forbes.com, 26 Apr. 2025
  • Mercury retrograde in your sign from March 15th might make communication feel like a hot mess.
    — Dossé-Via Trenou, refinery29.com, 27 Feb. 2025
  • Suddenly, a hot mess became Bo Nix against the New York Giants.
    — Troy Renck, Denver Post, 14 May 2026
  • On Monday, Christian Wood, who provides a hot hand at one end and a hot mess at the other, also sat with foot soreness.
    — Tim Cowlishaw, Dallas News, 14 Mar. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hot mess.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: