See balls up in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for balls up meaning in English (4.3kB)
{
"etymology_number": 1,
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "ball up"
},
"expansion": "ball up",
"name": "m"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From ball up.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "verb form"
},
"expansion": "balls up",
"name": "head"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "54 22 25",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "57 20 23",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English phrasal verbs with particle (up)",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"form_of": [
{
"word": "ball up"
}
],
"glosses": [
"third-person singular simple present indicative of ball up"
],
"id": "en-balls_up-en-verb-UcrK4ulf",
"links": [
[
"ball up",
"ball up#English"
]
],
"tags": [
"form-of",
"indicative",
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
}
],
"word": "balls up"
}
{
"etymology_number": 2,
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "balls"
},
"expansion": "balls",
"name": "m"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "up"
},
"expansion": "up",
"name": "m"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "balls-up"
},
"expansion": "balls-up",
"name": "m"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From balls + up; see also balls-up.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "ballses up",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "ballsing up",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "ballsed up",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "ballsed up",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "balls up (third-person singular simple present ballses up, present participle ballsing up, simple past and past participle ballsed up)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Australian English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "British English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Irish English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "New Zealand English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2009, Jan Kjaerstad, The Discoverer",
"text": "He was putting everything he had into it, but he kept ballsing up.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2011, Lesley Thomson, A Kind of Vanishing",
"text": "'We just have to get through without ballsing up",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To make a mess of a situtation."
],
"id": "en-balls_up-en-verb-nsyB-e1r",
"links": [
[
"mess",
"mess"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(British, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, vulgar, intransitive) To make a mess of a situtation."
],
"tags": [
"Australia",
"British",
"Ireland",
"New-Zealand",
"intransitive",
"vulgar"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Australian English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "British English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Irish English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "New Zealand English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "He really ballsed up that paint work. It'll have to be redone!",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1977, Mungo MacCallum, Mungo's Canberra, page 142",
"text": "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;",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2010, A.L. Kennedy, Everything You Need",
"text": "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.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2023 January 28, Justin Myers, “62 dating green flags that shout ‘this one’s a keeper’”, in The Guardian",
"text": "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.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To do something badly. To ruin a job."
],
"id": "en-balls_up-en-verb-4CfQK~oa",
"links": [
[
"badly",
"badly"
],
[
"ruin",
"ruin"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(British, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, vulgar, transitive) To do something badly. To ruin a job."
],
"tags": [
"Australia",
"British",
"Ireland",
"New-Zealand",
"transitive",
"vulgar"
]
}
],
"word": "balls up"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English non-lemma forms",
"English phrasal verbs",
"English phrasal verbs with particle (up)",
"English verb forms",
"English verbs"
],
"etymology_number": 1,
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "ball up"
},
"expansion": "ball up",
"name": "m"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From ball up.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "verb form"
},
"expansion": "balls up",
"name": "head"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"form_of": [
{
"word": "ball up"
}
],
"glosses": [
"third-person singular simple present indicative of ball up"
],
"links": [
[
"ball up",
"ball up#English"
]
],
"tags": [
"form-of",
"indicative",
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
}
],
"word": "balls up"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English phrasal verbs",
"English phrasal verbs with particle (up)",
"English verbs"
],
"etymology_number": 2,
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "balls"
},
"expansion": "balls",
"name": "m"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "up"
},
"expansion": "up",
"name": "m"
},
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "balls-up"
},
"expansion": "balls-up",
"name": "m"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From balls + up; see also balls-up.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "ballses up",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "ballsing up",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "ballsed up",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "ballsed up",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "balls up (third-person singular simple present ballses up, present participle ballsing up, simple past and past participle ballsed up)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"Australian English",
"British English",
"English intransitive verbs",
"English terms with quotations",
"English vulgarities",
"Irish English",
"New Zealand English"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2009, Jan Kjaerstad, The Discoverer",
"text": "He was putting everything he had into it, but he kept ballsing up.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2011, Lesley Thomson, A Kind of Vanishing",
"text": "'We just have to get through without ballsing up",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To make a mess of a situtation."
],
"links": [
[
"mess",
"mess"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(British, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, vulgar, intransitive) To make a mess of a situtation."
],
"tags": [
"Australia",
"British",
"Ireland",
"New-Zealand",
"intransitive",
"vulgar"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"Australian English",
"British English",
"English terms with quotations",
"English terms with usage examples",
"English transitive verbs",
"English vulgarities",
"Irish English",
"New Zealand English"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "He really ballsed up that paint work. It'll have to be redone!",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1977, Mungo MacCallum, Mungo's Canberra, page 142",
"text": "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;",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2010, A.L. Kennedy, Everything You Need",
"text": "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.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2023 January 28, Justin Myers, “62 dating green flags that shout ‘this one’s a keeper’”, in The Guardian",
"text": "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.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To do something badly. To ruin a job."
],
"links": [
[
"badly",
"badly"
],
[
"ruin",
"ruin"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(British, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, vulgar, transitive) To do something badly. To ruin a job."
],
"tags": [
"Australia",
"British",
"Ireland",
"New-Zealand",
"transitive",
"vulgar"
]
}
],
"word": "balls up"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.