bungle
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈbʌŋɡ(ə)l/
rhymes: -ʌŋɡəl
Forms: form: bungles
form: bungling
form: bungled
form: bungled
Etymology: The origin of the verb is uncertain; it is either:
* onomatopoeic in origin (compare bumble (“to act in an inept, clumsy or inexpert manner; to make mistakes”), fumble (“to grope awkwardly in trying to find something; to blunder uncertainly”)); or
* from Old Norse; compare Old Swedish bunga (“to strike”), and dialectal Swedish bangla (“to work ineffectually”).
The noun is derived from the verb.
Cognates
* German Bengel (“cudgel; rude fellow”)
* Middle High German bungen (“to hammer”)
Senses: examples: text: I always had an idea that it would be bungled; but was willing to hope, and am still so. Whatever I can do by money, means, or person, I will venture freely for their freedom; and have so repeated to them (some of the Chiefs here) half an hour ago.
ref: 1821 February 24, Lord Byron, “Extracts from a Diary of Lord Byron, 1821”, in Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: […], Frankfurt am Main: […] H. L. Brönner, published 1830, →OCLC, page 468, column 1:
text: […] talking in voices that, almost without exception, sounded collegiately dogmatic, as though each young man, in his strident, conversational turn, was clearing up, once and for all, some highly controversial issue, one that the outside, non-matriculating world had been bungling, provocatively or not, for centuries.
ref: 1955, J. D. Salinger, “Franny”, in Franny and Zooey, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, published 1991, →ISBN, page 3:
synonyms: word: botch
word: mishandle
word: crab
word: ball up
word: blight
word: botch
word: bugger up
word: bungle
word: dirty
word: undo
word: disrupt
word: disturb
word: fuck up
word: jack up
word: mar
word: mess up
word: mishandle
word: mommick
word: pollute
word: put a crimp in
word: queer
word: ruin
word: screw up
word: sour
word: spoil
word: stain
word: upset
word: turn upside down
word: upset the applecart
word: vitiate
glosses: To incompetently perform (a task); to ruin (something) through incompetent action; to botch up, to bumble.
examples: text: Physis is nothing else but the vegetable World, the Universall comprehension of Spermaticall life dispersed throughout. […] For Physis (as I said) is not the divine Understanding it self, but is as if you should conceive, an Artificers imagination separate from the Artificer, and left alone to work by it self without animadversion. Hence Physis or Nature is sometimes puzzeld and bungells in ill disposed matter, because its power is not absolute and omnipotent.
ref: 1647, Henry More, “[Philosophical Poems.] Notes upon Psychozoia.”, in Alexander B[alloch] Grosart, editor, The Complete Poems of Dr. Henry More (1614–1687) […] (Chertsey Worthies’ Library), [Edinburgh: […] Edinburgh University Press; Thomas and Archibald Constable, […]] for private circulation, published 1878, →OCLC, stanza 41, page 139, column 2:
text: [T]he trooper fails to fasten the brooch. His hand shakes, he is nervous, and it falls off. "Would any one believe this?" says he, catching it as it drops and looking round. "I am so out of sorts that I bungle at an easy job like this!"
ref: 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, “Dutiful Friendship”, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC, pages 474–475:
synonyms: blunder
glosses: To act or work incompetently; to fumble.
Derived terms: word: bungled
word: bungler
word: bunglery
word: bunglesome
word: bungling
word: bunglingly