---

• v  make a mess of, destroy or ruin
  I botched the dinner and we had to eat out
• s  spoiled through incompetence or clumsiness

• In 1981 two policemen and a security guard were killed in the botched holdup of a Brinks truck.
• A botched toy is one thing; a botched batch of heparin or a faulty aircraft component is quite another.
• In July, two botched car bombs caught fire in the northern state of Sinaloa.

• botch
• bodge
• bumble
• fumble
• botch up
• muff
• blow
• flub
• screw up
• ball up
• spoil
• muck up
• bungle
• fluff
• bollix
• bollix up
• bollocks
• bollocks up
• bobble
• mishandle
• louse up
• foul up
• mess up
• fuck up
• bungled

News & Articles

---

• Jury begins deliberations in 8-month erection case
  Jurors began deliberating Friday afternoon whether a urologist botched a penile implant procedure that left a Newark trucker with an eight-month erection.
  June 15, 2013 - The News Journal
• Child 'did not want to live anymore' after mother used stun gun over botched oatmeal
  An Orange County mother jailed after she allegedly struck her child with a stun gun over a botched breakfast posted bond Friday. Deputies are not identifying the gender of the child, but they said 34-year-old Melissa Neale was upset after the child did not make oatmeal correctly. Investigators said Neale went to her purse, grabbed her stun gun, chased the child around the kitchen and then held ...
  June 14, 2013 - WFTV 9 Orlando
• Van Poyck executed for role in Palm Beach officer's death
  William Van Poyck, whose botched jail break in 1987 left a prison guard dead, spent his last day with family, friends and a spiritual adviser.        
  June 13, 2013 - Orlando Sentinel

Quotes

---

• President Bush in USA Today
  On the controversy over the Justice Department's firing of eight federal prosecutors, Bush said: "I have to admit we really blew the way we let those attorneys go. You know you've botched it when people sympathize with lawyers."
• Patrick Leahy in FOXNews
  When it comes to the Northern Border, the muddled thinking and poor planning at DHS seems to have no bounds, and the agency that botched Katrina seems to have no shame and no memory to boot,Leahy said.
• Jim Allchin in InformationWeek
  In reply, Allchin wrote that, "We really botched this."