Dictionary

balls up en · VERB · etymology 1

Etymology

From ball up.

Meanings

1. (form-of, indicative, present, singular, third-person) third-person singular simple present indicative of ball up
   form of ball up

balls up en · VERB · etymology 2

Etymology

From balls + up; see also balls-up.

Meanings

1. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, intransitive, vulgar) To make a mess of a situation.
   • He was putting everything he had into it, but he kept ballsing up. 2009, Jan Kjaerstad, The Discoverer, →ISBN:
   • 'We just have to get through without ballsing up 2011, Lesley Thomson, A Kind of Vanishing, →ISBN:
2. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, transitive, vulgar) To do something badly. To ruin a job.
   • He really ballsed up that paint work. It'll have to be redone!
   • 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:
   • 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:

Forms