How to Use mess about in a Sentence

mess about

verb
  • The other kids would run off, messing about, once their game was over.
    — Daniel Taylor, New York Times, 11 Nov. 2025
  • Let our cool movie play at Toronto and stop messing about with a rubbish defamation suit against me!
    — Tommy McArdle, PEOPLE, 24 Sep. 2025
  • Blue whales glide through these seas late summer through fall, while orcas mess about mid-April through mid-May, and then again in August through October.
    — Alanna Bennett, Condé Nast Traveler, 20 Apr. 2026
  • Unfortunately, the luxurious era of those signals not being messed about with intentionally is over.
    — The Week Uk, TheWeek, 13 May 2026
  • Shiny black cars and mountain bikes are on standby to purr you down a three-mile country road to the Beach Club, where the mood is even more drowsy and low-key (though kids and alpha males will enjoy messing about with the paddleboards, windsurfers, and other non-motorised water-sports).
    — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 2 June 2026
  • Despite living in the most landlocked part of the British midlands in the 1980s, we were obsessed with the adventures of these 1929 pre-war kids messing about on boats in the Lake District.
    — Literary Hub, 20 May 2026

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

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