"screw the pooch" meaning in English

{
  "etymology_text": "1950s, from earlier fuck the dog (“fritter, waste time”) (1935) (compare fuck around), later sense of “make an embarrassing mistake” (compare screw up, fuck up). Popularized by use by Tom Wolfe in The Right Stuff (1979), and film adaptation The Right Stuff (1983).\nmore\nThe term was first documented in the early \"Mercury\" days of the US space program. It came there from a Yale graduate named John Rawlings who helped design the astronauts' space suits. The phrase is actually derived from an earlier, more vulgar and direct term which was slang for doing something very much the wrong way, as in \"you are fucking the dog!\" At Yale a friend of Rawlings', the radio DJ Jack May (a.k.a. \"Candied Yam Jackson\") amended this term to \"screwing the pooch\" which was simultaneously less vulgar and more pleasing to the ear.\nThe term, however, did not enter the popular lexicon until Tom Wolfe used it in his book about the space program, The Right Stuff, where it was used to describe a supposed mistake by astronaut Gus Grissom.\nThe phrase's origins come from an old joke. There are various versions, but a drunk man ends up shooting the wife and screwing the pooch (instead of the other way around).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "screws the pooch",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "screwing the pooch",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "screwed the pooch",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "screwed the pooch",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
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      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "screw the pooch (third-person singular simple present screws the pooch, present participle screwing the pooch, simple past and past participle screwed the pooch)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
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        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
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        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with French translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
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          "kind": "other",
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          "kind": "other",
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        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Spanish translations",
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        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "to make a large mistake, to fail in dramatic and ignominious fashion."
      ],
      "id": "en-screw_the_pooch-en-verb-UyLtqwE5",
      "links": [
        [
          "mistake",
          "mistake"
        ],
        [
          "fail",
          "fail"
        ],
        [
          "dramatic",
          "dramatic"
        ],
        [
          "ignominious",
          "ignominious"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) to make a large mistake, to fail in dramatic and ignominious fashion."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "crash and burn"
        },
        {
          "word": "fuck up"
        },
        {
          "word": "drop the ball"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "eo",
          "lang": "Esperanto",
          "sense": "to fail",
          "word": "fleksiĝi"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "to fail",
          "word": "tout foutre en l’air"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "to fail",
          "word": "meter a pata"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "oblažátʹsja",
          "sense": "to fail",
          "tags": [
            "perfective"
          ],
          "word": "облажа́ться"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "to fail",
          "word": "meterla hasta el corvejón"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "to fail",
          "word": "meter la pata"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "to fail",
          "tags": [
            "Latin-America"
          ],
          "word": "embarrarla"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "to fail",
          "tags": [
            "Mexico"
          ],
          "word": "regarla"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Tom Wolfe"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-screw the pooch.ogg",
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    }
  ],
  "word": "screw the pooch"
}

{
  "etymology_text": "1950s, from earlier fuck the dog (“fritter, waste time”) (1935) (compare fuck around), later sense of “make an embarrassing mistake” (compare screw up, fuck up). Popularized by use by Tom Wolfe in The Right Stuff (1979), and film adaptation The Right Stuff (1983).\nmore\nThe term was first documented in the early \"Mercury\" days of the US space program. It came there from a Yale graduate named John Rawlings who helped design the astronauts' space suits. The phrase is actually derived from an earlier, more vulgar and direct term which was slang for doing something very much the wrong way, as in \"you are fucking the dog!\" At Yale a friend of Rawlings', the radio DJ Jack May (a.k.a. \"Candied Yam Jackson\") amended this term to \"screwing the pooch\" which was simultaneously less vulgar and more pleasing to the ear.\nThe term, however, did not enter the popular lexicon until Tom Wolfe used it in his book about the space program, The Right Stuff, where it was used to describe a supposed mistake by astronaut Gus Grissom.\nThe phrase's origins come from an old joke. There are various versions, but a drunk man ends up shooting the wife and screwing the pooch (instead of the other way around).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "screws the pooch",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "screwing the pooch",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "screwed the pooch",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "screwed the pooch",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "screw the pooch (third-person singular simple present screws the pooch, present participle screwing the pooch, simple past and past participle screwed the pooch)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English predicates",
        "English verbs",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with Esperanto translations",
        "Terms with French translations",
        "Terms with Portuguese translations",
        "Terms with Russian translations",
        "Terms with Spanish translations"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "to make a large mistake, to fail in dramatic and ignominious fashion."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "mistake",
          "mistake"
        ],
        [
          "fail",
          "fail"
        ],
        [
          "dramatic",
          "dramatic"
        ],
        [
          "ignominious",
          "ignominious"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) to make a large mistake, to fail in dramatic and ignominious fashion."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Tom Wolfe"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-screw the pooch.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/65/En-au-screw_the_pooch.ogg/En-au-screw_the_pooch.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/En-au-screw_the_pooch.ogg"
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  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "crash and burn"
    },
    {
      "word": "fuck up"
    },
    {
      "word": "drop the ball"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "eo",
      "lang": "Esperanto",
      "sense": "to fail",
      "word": "fleksiĝi"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "to fail",
      "word": "tout foutre en l’air"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "to fail",
      "word": "meter a pata"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "oblažátʹsja",
      "sense": "to fail",
      "tags": [
        "perfective"
      ],
      "word": "облажа́ться"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "to fail",
      "word": "meterla hasta el corvejón"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "to fail",
      "word": "meter la pata"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "to fail",
      "tags": [
        "Latin-America"
      ],
      "word": "embarrarla"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "to fail",
      "tags": [
        "Mexico"
      ],
      "word": "regarla"
    }
  ],
  "word": "screw the pooch"
}