balls up

1. indicativepresentsingularthird personthird-person singular simple present indicative of ball up

present singular third person ballses up · participle present ballsing up · participle past ballsed up · past ballsed up

1. CommonwealthIrelandUKintransitivevulgarTo make a mess of a situation.

   'We just have to get through without ballsing up

   2011, Lesley Thomson, A Kind of Vanishing, →ISBN

   1 more example

   He was putting everything he had into it, but he kept ballsing up.

   2009, Jan Kjaerstad, The Discoverer, →ISBN

2. CommonwealthIrelandUKtransitivevulgarTo do something badly. To ruin a job.

   He really ballsed up that paint work. It'll have to be redone!

   3 more examples

   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;

   1977, Mungo MacCallum, Mungo's Canberra, page 142

   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.

   2010, A.L. Kennedy, Everything You Need, →ISBN

   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.

   2023 January 28, Justin Myers, “62 dating green flags that shout ‘this one’s a keeper’”, in The Guardian