Messy

How to spell messy

5 letters · 2 syllables

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')