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mess with

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus 0.06 sec.
mess with someone
to annoy, worry, or cause problems for someone. I'm tired of people messing with me and not telling me the truth.
Usage notes: often used with not: You don't want to mess with this guy.
Related vocabulary: fool with someone
See also: mess

mess with something
1. to take apart or fix something complicated esp. in order to learn more about how it works. I enjoy messing with computers the way some folks get pleasure from rebuilding old cars.
2. to change something in a way that is likely to cause harm. Crime really messes with the quality of life in a community. Don't mess with funding for education programs that have a direct impact on student learning.
3. to become involved with something dangerous. He admitted that he had messed with drugs as a teen. You wouldn't want to mess with a truckload of mail that might be contaminated.
Related vocabulary: fool with something, fiddle with something, fuss with something
See also: mess
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? References in classic literature
He at once resolved to accompany me to that island, ship aboard the same vessel, get into the same watch, the same boat, the same mess with me, in short to share my every hap; with both my hands in his, boldly dip into the Potluck of both worlds.
Moby Dick I-LXVII by Melville, Herman View in context
When she had got them into her house, she set them upon benches and seats and mixed them a mess with cheese, honey, meal, and Pramnian wine, but she drugged it with wicked poisons to make them forget their homes, and when they had drunk she turned them into pigs by a stroke of her wand, and shut them up in her pig-styes.
The Odyssey by Homer View in context
In this the woman, as fair as a goddess, mixed them a mess with Pramnian wine; she grated goat's milk cheese into it with a bronze grater, threw in a handful of white barley-meal, and having thus prepared the mess she bade them drink it.
The Iliad by Homer View in context
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