balls up
See also: balls-up
English
editEtymology 1
editFrom ball up.
Verb
edit- third-person singular simple present indicative of ball up
Etymology 2
editFrom balls + up; see also balls-up.
Verb
editballs up (third-person singular simple present ballses up, present participle ballsing up, simple past and past participle ballsed up)
- (UK, Commonwealth, Ireland, vulgar, intransitive) To make a mess of a situtation.
- (UK, Commonwealth, Ireland, vulgar, transitive) To do something badly. To ruin a job.
- He really ballsed up that paint work. It'll have to be redone!
- 1977, Mungo MacCallum, Mungo's Canberra, page 142:
- It has got to the ludicrous stage that whenever Snedden makes a speech without actually ballsing something up irrevocably, they tell him he's the greatest thing since Winston Churchill;
- 2010, A.L. Kennedy, Everything You Need, →ISBN:
- Bearing in mind that if you're teasing but you have to explain it, then you're not teasing, you're just ballsing things up and being a fucking thug.
- 2023 January 28, Justin Myers, “62 dating green flags that shout ‘this one’s a keeper’”, in The Guardian[1]:
- We’re humans, we’re fallible, there is no medal for being right all the time; admitting we ballsed it up is not a weakness, it’s a superpower.
Anagrams
editCategories:
- English non-lemma forms
- English verb forms
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English phrasal verbs
- English phrasal verbs formed with "up"
- English multiword terms
- British English
- Commonwealth English
- Irish English
- English vulgarities
- English intransitive verbs
- English terms with quotations
- English transitive verbs
- English terms with usage examples