ball up
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- Verb (transitive):
- To make a mess of something; to handle something so poorly that it becomes ruined or fails.
- To confuse or muddle a situation, plan, or task completely.
Usage
- The verb "ball up" is informal and often implies causing failure through error, clumsiness, or mismanagement. It is typically used with an object (what is being messed up).
- It describes the action of turning something that should be orderly into a state of disorder or failure.
Examples
- Verb:
- Don't let him organize the files; he'll just ball up the whole system.
- I completely balled up the presentation by forgetting my notes.
- She was worried she would ball up the recipe if she tried to improvise.
Advanced Usage
- "to get balled up": To become confused or entangled in a situation.
- The instructions were so complicated that I got completely balled up.
- Often used in the past participle form "balled up" to describe a state of confusion or a botched result.
- The travel plans were all balled up after the flight cancellation.
Variants and Related Words
- Bollix up (verb): A variant with the same meaning (to ruin or confuse).
- Ball-up (noun): An informal term for a confused mess or a botched situation.
Synonyms
- Botch: To carry out a task badly or carelessly.
- Screw up: To make a mistake or mishandle something (very similar in register and meaning).
- Muddle: To bring into a disordered or confusing state.
- Foul up: To cause something to fail or go wrong.
Related Phrasal Verbs
- Mess up: To make something dirty or untidy, or to do something incorrectly.
- Foul up: To cause something to stop working properly or to ruin plans.
Related Idioms
- Make a hash of something: To do something very badly.
- Make a pig's ear of something: To do a task very clumsily or badly.
Verb
- make a mess of, destroy or ruin
- I botched the dinner and we had to eat out
- the pianist screwed up the difficult passage in the second movement