Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also messed around) ruined in any sense, physically, emotionally or mentally.

1919		G.B. Shaw Heartbreak House II 85: I get my whole life messed up with people falling in love with me.
1924		P. Marks Plastic Age 156: Now, I’m all messed up about this sex business.
1935		Helena (MT) Indep. 27 Oct. 9/1–2: G-Man’s sweetheart. Brother a notorious gang leader [...] Gets all messed up in G-men, desperadoes, iron knuckles and machine guns.
1953		W.P. McGivern Big Heat 141: He told you I’m messed up for good, didn’t he?
1960		Mad mag. June 48: This messed-up, longhaired, queer old beatnik crow.
1969		F. Norman Norman’s London 246: It is really quite a time since I lunched with anyone who wasn’t messed up in some way.
1973		in C. Browne Body Shop 102: I’ve seen guys in the hospital [...] and they’re really messed up in the head. Some of them them give up.
1981		W.D. Myers Hoops 137: Wham! One minute mama was messed around and the next she was okay.
1995		J. Cameron Vinnie Got Blown Away 27: Faces were all messed, hard to recognise anyone but no one I knew.
1996		W.D. Myers Slam! 263: ‘Bianca is messed around bad because Ice is her old man and she wants to stick with him’.
1999		Guardian Guide 18–24 Sept. 20: With Robert De Niro as a messed-up mafioso and Billy Crystal the shrink who treats him.
2005		L. Redhead Rubdown [ebook] I [...] ended up telling them everything. I’d been too messed up to lie.
2006		G. Pelecanos Night Gardener 52: And those kids’ll be messed up for life.
2008		W.D. Myers Game 4: [W]hen my man Ruffy’s brother was arrested right after Christmas, she got really messed around.
2010		A. Steinberg Running the Books 184: Sylvia [Plath] was into some pretty messed-up shit, right?
2012		W.D. Myers Cruisers: A Star is Born 39: [K]ids shouldn’t get messed around because they didn’t have a lot of money.
2016		A. Wheatle Crongton Knights 10: The kinda messed-up smile that parents use to hide what’s really going on.

2. (orig. US) extremely intoxicated by a drug or drink; one of a number of terms that equate extreme drunkenness with suffering violence. Many of such terms can also apply to the effects of drugs.

1952		H. Ellson Golden Spike 175: You’re messed up in more ways than one [...] Keep it up and you’re going to goof yourself out of existence.
1965		C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 114: They’d snort half a cap [...] save half a cap for some other time. You could stay messed up all day long.
1977		J. Sayles Union Dues (1978) 325: His head’s so messed up with all the stuff he’s done, everything in the drugstore, that he couldn’t get past the physical.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 176: Messed up, fucked up, or gone refer to destruction at the hands of others or self-destruction through excessive use of drugs or marijuana.
1993		L. Rodríguez Always Running (1996) 158: ‘Louis, what’s the matter. You messed up or what? [...] You said you’d stop taking dope’.
1994		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 6: messed up – very drunk or very high on drugs.
1998		P. Doyle (con. late 1950s) Amaze Your Friends (2019) 10: ‘Why don’t you hang with us? We’re going to get all messed up’.
2000		M. Collins Keepers of Truth 159: He got so messed up on the drugs, it was like meeting Satan in a business suit in the dark of your worst dreams.
2006		J. Ridley What Fire Cannot Burn 249: Wanting a drink, too messed up to be able to go get one.

3. injured.

1972		T. O’Brien If I Die in a Combat Zone (1980) 14: Someone had to get messed up during all that [i.e. gunfire].
1984		(con. 1964–73) W. Terry Bloods (1985) 5: My leg is really messed up. I’m hoppin’.
1988		W.D. Myers Scorpions 71: ‘How her hand?’ ‘Messed up. She put some lard on it’.
2010		W.D. Myers Lockdown 19: [H]e was really messed up. His eye was all swollen and there was dried blood under his nose. Somebody had fucked him up bad.

4. (US black) irrational.

1979		W.D. Myers The Young Landlords 118: ‘There ain’t no law that says you can’t steal from a man if he’s just stupider than you.’ ‘That’s some messed-up logic’.
1991		L. Bing Do or Die (1992) 90: I love my brother [...] but to tell the truth, that’s a messed-up attitude.
2008		G. Pelecanos Way Home (2009) 146: I wasn’t crazy or nothin like that [but] I acted all messed up.

5. (US black) troubled, suffering bad luck, wrong, unfair.

1985		T.R. Houser Central Sl. 36: messed up Used to indicate that something is righteously wrong. ‘Scooter got taken off, man, that’s messed up.’.
1994		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 6: messed up [...] unfair, wrong, absurd: ‘That test was messed up! Was any of that stuff in your notes?’.
1999		J. Ridley Everybody Smokes in Hell 6: Why are you getting messed up with this guy?