Sloppy means messy, careless, or done without attention to detail. When your handwriting is sloppy, letters overlap and words run together, making it hard to read. A sloppy room has clothes on the floor, books scattered everywhere, and who knows what hidden under the bed.

The word describes both physical messiness and careless work. A sloppy eater might drip spaghetti sauce on their shirt. A sloppy research paper has spelling errors, missing facts, and confusing paragraphs. When a soccer player makes a sloppy pass, the ball wobbles off target because they didn't focus on technique.

Sloppy often suggests that someone could have done better but didn't put in the effort. A painter who rushes through a project and leaves drips on the floor did sloppy work. Compare this to someone who's simply learning: a beginning artist might make mistakes, but that's different from being sloppy.

The word can also describe something watery or loose, like sloppy mud that squelches under your boots, or a sloppy joe sandwich where the sauce-soaked meat mixture spills out the sides. In this sense, sloppy just means wet and messy, without any judgment about carelessness.