How to Use muck up in a Sentence

muck up

verb
  • I swear, she mucks up everything she tries.
  • And no string, rope, cord or twine, which can muck up postal machinery.
    — Marc Bona, cleveland, 1 Dec. 2022
  • Sure, all this meddling does muck up the pacing somewhat, but who cares?
    — Jeff Spry, Space.com, 27 Apr. 2026
  • Give coach Chris Beard credit for trying to muck up the game.
    — Mark Long, Orlando Sentinel, 9 Mar. 2025
  • The hilly landscapes block views of storms, mucking up storm-chasing efforts.
    — Carolyn Wilke, Smithsonian Magazine, 1 Nov. 2023
  • Then the Legislature moved the lines and mucked up Cole’s plans.
    — Kyle Whitmire | [email protected], al, 11 July 2023
  • Then come foul up, goof up, gum up, mess up, muck up, screw up and synonymous unprintables.
    — Richard Lederer, San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 Mar. 2021
  • That's where Adebayo's extension could muck up their free-agency plans.
    — Bryan Toporek, Forbes, 19 May 2021
  • Any chance of mucking up the motivation of the accused is seized upon.
    — Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 28 Apr. 2023
  • This wouldn’t be the first time such a discrepancy mucks up the MCU.
    — Siddhant Adlakha, Vulture, 26 July 2024
  • The team length is helpful in a multitude of ways, but one is how the Jazz can muck up the paint and still get out to shooters.
    — Andy Larsen, The Salt Lake Tribune, 31 Oct. 2022
  • The stick format means it can be applied without mucking up your hands, and older kids can apply it themselves.
    — Mandy Harris, Travel + Leisure, 18 Oct. 2023
  • Lopez believes Uresti enlisted Garcia to run as a way to muck up the race.
    — Gilbert Garcia, San Antonio Express-News, 8 Feb. 2022
  • Puddles of oozing tar have been showing up over the last week, mucking up car tires and anything else that gets mired in the sticky black substance.
    — Jeremy Childs, Los Angeles Times, 15 Sep. 2023
  • The Supreme Court, in its infinite wisdom, has only mucked up the waters.
    — Washington Post, 9 July 2024
  • There are times when Moody passes up open jump shots in favor of drives into a crowded paint, which can muck up a possession.
    — Danny Emerman, The Mercury News, 18 Apr. 2024
  • The hydrogen flow keeps vaporized tin from mucking up the system’s optics.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 12 June 2023
  • The sphere is now rigged to heat and cool things—space gets very hot and very cold—and to handle simulant, which would muck up a standard vacuum system.
    — Matthew Hutson, The New Yorker, 24 Sep. 2024
  • He has been blamed for mismanaging the bullpen, mucking up the lineup and failing to put this team in a position to succeed.
    — Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times, 12 Oct. 2023
  • The area also makes for a great storage space, especially for dirty shoes that otherwise muck up the living quarters.
    — Ben Romans, Outdoor Life, 10 Sep. 2019
  • The mediocre ones muck up their work with ahistorical paint colors or materials.
    — Christopher Bonanos, Curbed, 17 July 2021
  • He has been blamed for mismanaging the bullpen, mucking up the lineup, and failing to put this team in a position to succeed.
    — Dylan Hernández, Los Angeles Times, 12 Oct. 2023
  • Raj Verma was brought in to fix the public works system in a town known for sewage spills that muck up homeowners’ yards and neighborhood streets.
    — Susannah Bryan, sun-sentinel.com, 1 July 2021
  • Toronto is a good defensive team but doesn’t shoot the 3-ball well and has a half-court offense that can get mucked up and relies heavily on midrange jumpers.
    — James L. Edwards Iii, New York Times, 9 Mar. 2026
  • Privacy Policy What role will politics play in mucking up this whole process?
    — Nicholas Florko and Sarah Owermohle, STAT, 30 May 2024
  • 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
  • But these Eagles have waded through mud all season, mucking up the pace at their discretion, executing down the stretch.
    — Luca Evans, Los Angeles Times, 11 Mar. 2023
  • That trademark defense that muddies the waters for many, mucking up rhythm and leaving teams feeling hot breath on necks barely slowed the high-flying Huskies.
    — Bryce Miller, San Diego Union-Tribune, 29 Mar. 2024
  • Of all the crew members, Mouse is the most philosophical, speaking early about how the machines have mucked up the taste of his favorite cereal.
    — Mathew Rodriguez, Them, 6 Mar. 2025
  • Because Butler is a weak 3-point shooter, Boston will crowd the paint and muck up Miami’s spacing.
    — New York Times, 17 May 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'muck up.' 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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