"screw the pooch" meaning in English

See screw the pooch in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-screw the pooch.ogg Forms: screws the pooch [present, singular, third-person], screwing the pooch [participle, present], screwed the pooch [participle, past], screwed the pooch [past]
Etymology: 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). more The 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. The 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. The 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). Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} screw the pooch (third-person singular simple present screws the pooch, present participle screwing the pooch, simple past and past participle screwed the pooch)
  1. (idiomatic) to make a large mistake, to fail in dramatic and ignominious fashion. Wikipedia link: Tom Wolfe Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: crash and burn, fuck up, drop the ball, shit the bed Translations (to fail): fleksiĝi (Esperanto), tout foutre en l’air (French), meter a pata (Portuguese), облажа́ться (oblažátʹsja) [perfective] (Russian), meterla hasta el corvejón (Spanish), meter la pata (Spanish), embarrarla [Latin-America] (Spanish), regarla [Mexico] (Spanish)

Inflected forms

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  "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).",
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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"
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        [
          "fail",
          "fail"
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        [
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          "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"
        },
        {
          "word": "shit the bed"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
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      "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"
        }
      ],
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        "Tom Wolfe"
      ]
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}
{
  "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).",
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      "form": "screwing the pooch",
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        "present"
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    },
    {
      "form": "screwed the pooch",
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        "participle",
        "past"
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    },
    {
      "form": "screwed the pooch",
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      "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"
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
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      ],
      "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"
      ]
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "crash and burn"
    },
    {
      "word": "fuck up"
    },
    {
      "word": "drop the ball"
    },
    {
      "word": "shit the bed"
    }
  ],
  "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"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-08 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (bb46d54 and 0c3c9f6). 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.

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