balls up
See also: balls-up
English
Etymology 1
From ball up.
Verb
- third-person singular simple present indicative of ball up
Etymology 2
From balls + up; see also balls-up.
Verb
balls up (third-person singular simple present ballses up, present participle ballsing up, simple past and past participle ballsed up) (phrasal verb)
- (British, Australia, New Zealand, vulgar, intransitive) To make a mess of a situtation.
- (British, Australia, New Zealand, vulgar, transitive) To do something badly. To ruin a job.
- 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.
- He really ballsed up that paint work. It'll have to be redone!
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