foozle

present singular third person foozles · participle present foozling · participle past foozled · past foozled

1. transitiveTo do (something) awkwardly or clumsily; to bungle.

   I wouldn't have trusted dear old Monty to break the death of a bluebottle without managing to foozle it somehow.

   c. 1900, F. Anstey, Humor and Fantasy

   1 more example

   Every baseball fan is acquainted with the sarcastic reminder, "two hands are the fashion nowadays," often hurled at the infielder who foozles an attempt at a grandstand play in the form of a one-handed catch.

   1921 October 2, “One-handed drivers menace to public”, in Vancouver Sun, Vancouver, B.C., page 17

2. intransitiveTo act awkwardly or clumsily.

   An aunt is always a jocular subject. If a man foozles at golf, he does not say, 'Oh, my cousin, my brother, or my grandfather!' He says, 'Oh, my aunt!' Possibly, general, the Persian is equally deficient in the materteral instinct.

   1900 October, Max Pemberton, “Pro Patria. [Chapter] XVI.”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume XXIV, number 1, New York, N.Y.: Frank A[ndrew] Munsey, […], →OCLC, page 79, column 1

plural foozles

1. A fogey.

   There is an old foozle of a lord, the earl of Ballyduff, who lives in London, and who is determined on nominating to his vacant borough

   1838, Denis Ignatius Moriarty, The Wife Hunter

2. A mistaken shot in golf.

   Even poor Mr. Lloyd George cannot go out of his front door, or make a foozle on the ninth green, without being snapshotted, sketched, and probably filmed.

   1923, Stacy Aumonier, Odd Fish

3. slangvideo gamesA cliché final boss that only exists to act as the final problem before players can complete a game.

   The original Ultima was a kill-the-foozle type of game where the goal was to destroy the Gem of Power, which was held by an evil wizard named Mondain.

   2005, William Abner, Gamer’s Tome of Ultimate Wisdom 2006