Mess around means to behave in a silly way, to fool around, and mess around with something means to play with it and try things without a clear plan. The first meaning often sounds like a complaint: Stop messing around. The second is neutral: mess around with a new app. The expression is informal; in British English, people say mess about just as often.
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mess around; mess around with + noun; stop messing around; BrE also mess about
- Stop messing around and help me carry these boxes upstairs.
- I spent the weekend messing around with an old guitar I found in the attic.
- The kids were messing around in the pool all afternoon.
What changed
First versionStop to mess around and get back to work.
RevisionStop messing around and get back to work.
Stop to mess around is a common mistake. Stop to do something means to stop in order to do something, so the sentence actually says “stop so that you can fool around”. To tell someone to quit an activity, use the -ing form after stop: stop messing around.
Mess up means to spoil something or get it wrong: I messed up the exam. Mess around means to fool around or play with something without a clear plan, and the result is not necessarily bad: I messed around with the app until I understood it. Both are informal. In an essay, use waste time or experiment with instead of mess around, and make a mistake or ruin instead of mess up.
Your turn
We had an hour before the train, so we just ___ in the park and took silly photos.
Show the answer
messed around — The friends were killing time and fooling around, so messed around. Messed up would mean they spoiled something or made a mistake, and nothing bad happens in the sentence.
Describe an evening with no plans. Say where you were and what you played around with just for fun.
On Friday evening I stayed at home and messed around with a new drawing app on my tablet.
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