From mess +‎ -y.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɛsi/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛsi
• Hyphenation: messy
• Homophone: Messi

messy (comparative messier, superlative messiest)

1. (of a place, situation, person, etc) In a disorderly state; chaotic; disorderly.

   a messy office

   Jim ran his fingers through his messy brown hair.

   • 2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist‎^[1], volume 408, number 8847, archived from the original on 11 March 2023:

     Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory.

2. (of a person) Prone to causing mess.

   He is the messiest person I've ever met.

3. (of a situation) Difficult or unpleasant to deal with.

   a messy divorce

   • 2008 May 4, Alexandra Jacobs, “Blame the Messager”, in The New York Times‎^[2], archived from the original on 18 December 2021:

     Say bonjour to the botched R.S.V.P. The practice of replying to invitations, let alone actually showing up to parties as promised, has become as antiquated as the chimney sweep, and much messier.

4. (of a person) Argumentative, spreading spreading gossip, talking behind someone's back

   They keep starting fights with Sam, they're so messy.

• (in a disorderly state): untidy, chaotic, disorderly, cluttered

• neat
• orderly

• → German: Messie

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “messy”, in The Century Dictionary[…], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “messy”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• Symes

messy

1. alternative form of messe