muck up

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muck up (third-person singular simple present mucks up, present participle mucking up, simple past and past participle mucked up)

1. (informal, transitive, intransitive) To ruin unintentionally.

   Synonyms: mess up; see also Thesaurus:make a mistake

   The terrorists have really mucked up our holiday plans.

   • 2015 December 2, “The Founders, the Plurals, iGen or ReGen – what should we call the post-millennials?”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     That’s why they’re called the Founders? Yes, because it will be their job to repair a world that millennials have mucked up beyond repair.

   • 2016 March 31, Reuters, quoting Mesut Özil, “Mesut Özil: Arsenal ‘mucked it up ourselves’ as trophy hopes recede”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     “Looking at our season so far, we have to be honest and admit that we mucked it up ourselves,” Özil told the German website spox.com. “We did not play to our potential in the games against the so-called smaller teams. You immediately get punished for that in the Premier League.

   • 2023 May 17, Adam Robertson, quoting Douglas Murray, “Author sparks backlash with 'Germany mucked up twice' comment”, in The National‎:

     He said that this was simply a “historical fact” and that he could “see no reason why every other country in the world should be prevented from feeling pride in itself because the Germans mucked up twice in a century”.

2. (informal, Australia, intransitive) To clown around; to have fun, often at the expense of others.

   Synonyms: muck about, muck around; (vulgar) fuck about, fuck around

   It's the last day of school and everyone is mucking up.