Messy

How to spell messy

5 letters · 2 syllables

9 of the 112 people asked to spell messy in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.

The most common mistake is messey. The letters people get wrong are highlighted.

messey messy

What people typed instead

• messey3 people

How to pronounce messy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does messy mean?

1. adjectiveUntidy, dirty, or in a state of disorder.

Messy in a sentence

• His desk was so messy that he could not find the contract.

• The kitchen looked messy after the children finished baking.

Where does messy come from?

Language of origin: French

Messy is built from the noun 'mess' plus the common English adjective ending '-y', which turns a noun into an adjective meaning 'full of' or 'characterised by'. The noun 'mess' came into English in the 1200s from Old French 'mes', meaning a portion or serving of food, which itself traces back to the Latin verb 'mittere', meaning 'to send' or 'to put', via the late Latin 'missus', 'a course at a meal'. For centuries a 'mess' simply meant a dish of food or a group of people who ate together, a sense that still survives in the military 'mess hall'. The modern idea of a 'mess' as a state of disorder or untidiness only developed in the 1800s, probably from the image of mixed-up scraps of food, and 'messy' followed naturally to describe anything jumbled or dirty. The spelling trap is small but real: the word keeps the double 's' of 'mess' and simply changes nothing before adding '-y', so it is 'messy', not 'mesy'.

How the word is built

• mess (disorder, from Old French mes: a portion of food)
• -y (adjective suffix meaning 'characterised by')