- botch
- botch vb Botch, bungle, fumble, muff, cobble mean to handle or treat awkwardly or unskillfully.Botch may imply repairing or mending, but it frequently implies a making or forming by patching or by putting together out of pieces. It consistently suggests incompetence and a spoiling or marring of the thing produced, whatever its character{
botch a job
}{an assemblage of ill-informed gentlemen who have botched every business they have ever undertaken— Shaw
}{the suit was vilely botched and skimped . . . and now it was too late to remedy the defect— Wolfe
}Bungle implies ignorance, ineffectualness, or clumsiness in design or execution or an inability to use materials with skill or competence{the plans were badly bungled
}{he has completely bungled the matter
}{some singularly excellent recordings side by side with some pretty bungled ones— P. H. Lang
}{some Occupation officials said and did stupid things, and inexperience led to bungling— Sat. Review
}Fumble stresses clumsy or unskillful use of the hands especially in uncertain attempts to reach, take, or grasp something or in groping in the dark for something{a football player who seldom fumbles
}{recovered himself, fumbled with his cap, and made a bow— Dickens
}{his old fingers fumbling absently for the beard which wasn't there— Mary Austin
}{so she fumbled about in the dim light, and brought her brother his bread and butter and meat— Deland
}Occasionally it suggests the awkward un-certainty not of hands or fingers but of mind or soul{a hesitant speaker fumbling for the right words
}{never fumbling with what she has to say, never . . . imperfectly presenting her thought— Arnold
}Muff, a word much used in sports, especially implies an unskillful performance or a bad play (as in catching a ball, firing a shot, or wielding a golf stick){muff a stroke
}{he muffed the ball
}Consequently muff in more general use often means to fail by bungling or fumbling{muff an opportunity
}{he muffed his chances for the nomination
}Cobble is much like botch, though it basically implies the mending or patching of shoes; in more general use it stresses a patching or putting together of something in a crude or clumsy manner{even generous critics . . . attribute to him a limit in narrative stamina ... his wind gave out too soon, forcing him to cobble things up out of tone—J. C. Furnas
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
