botch
Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /bɒt͡ʃ/
  • (America) IPA: /bɑt͡ʃ/
Verb

botch (botches, present participle botching; past and past participle botched)

  1. (transitive) To perform (a task) in an unacceptable or incompetent manner; to make a mess of something
    A botched haircut seems to take forever to grow out.
    Synonyms: ruin, bungle, spoil, destroy
  2. To do something without skill, without care, or clumsily.
  3. To repair or mend clumsily.
Synonyms Translations Translations Noun

botch (plural botches)

  1. An action, job, or task that has been performed very badly; a ruined, defective, or clumsy piece of work.
    • 1606, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 3, scene 1
      To leave no rubs nor botches in the work
  2. A patch put on, or a part of a garment patched or mended in a clumsy manner.
  3. A mistake that is very stupid or embarrassing.
  4. A messy, disorderly or confusing combination; conglomeration; hodgepodge.
  5. (archaic) One who makes a mess of something; a bungler.
    • 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard
      If it was the last word I ever spoke, Puddock, you're a good-natured—he's a gentleman, Sir—and it was all my own fault; he warned me, he did, again' swallyin' a dhrop of it—remember what I'm saying, doctor—'twas I that done it; I was always a botch, Puddock, an' a fool; and—and—gentlemen—good-bye.
Translations Translations Translations Related terms Noun

botch (plural botches)

  1. (obsolete) A tumour or other malignant swelling.
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book X ↗”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗, line 1071:
      Botches and blaines muſt all his fleſh imboſs,
  2. A case or outbreak of boils or sores.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Deuteronomy 28:27 ↗:
      The Lord wil smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scabbe, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not bee healed.



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