bauchle

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English

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Etymology

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From Scots, probably related to Old French bafouer (to hoodwink).

Verb

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bauchle (third-person singular simple present bauchles, present participle bauchling, simple past and past participle bauchled)

  1. (Scotland) To misuse, to bungle.
    • 1886, Robert Louis Stephenson, Kidnapped:
      Our enemies were disputing not far off upon the deck, and that so loudly that I could hear a word or two above the washing of the seas. “It was Shuan bauchled it,” I heard one say.
    • 1925, John Buchan, John Macnab:
      Maybe that shot that ye think ye bauchled was the most providential shot ye ever fired...
  2. (Scotland) To insult, to upbraid, to make a fool of someone.
    • 1972, George MacDonald Fraser, The Steel Bonnets, page 152:
      An echo of "bauchling" lingered on, it seemed to me, in Cumbrian rural police courts until a few years ago. Nowhere else, as a court reporter, have I heard so much abusive interruption and blasphemous invocation from the public benches during the hearing of cases. Cumbrian magistrates dealt with it most tolerantly.

Noun

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bauchle (plural bauchles)

  1. (Scotland, chiefly in the plural) An old shoe.
    • 1842, Laird of Logan, Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, issue 481, page 104.
      We a' ken that there's tongues in heads, but I ne'er heard o' ony in hats or bauchles afore.
  2. (Scotland) A fool.
    • 1843, Robert Woodrow, The life of Mister Robert Bruce, Minister at Edinburgh, page 92:
      He adds, probably his letter would be propaled and made a bauchle of, and assures them he was never loved at Court as a minister.
  3. (Scotland) A bungled or muddled situation; a mess.