Botch

Botch refers to a clumsy or badly executed result, or to the act of performing something poorly. As a noun, a botch is a bungled job or a patchy, defective outcome. As a verb, to botch means to perform a task badly or to mishandle it; the forms botched and botching are common, and the phrasal verb botch up is widely used in informal speech.

Botching occurs in many domains where precision matters, such as construction, repairs, crafts, or medicine. A botched repair, a botched operation, or a botched piece of work describes results that require rework and may cause embarrassment or inconvenience. The term carries a negative evaluation and is typically reserved for avoidable mistakes rather than unavoidable accidents.

Etymology is uncertain; the word appears in Middle English with senses related to a patch or lump, and later came to signify a defective result. The modern sense of a bungled act developed through metaphorical use.

Related terms include bungle, mishandle, muff, and flub. In casual use, phrases like "botch job" or "botched job" are common, sometimes with qualifiers such as "ambitious" or "careless" depending on context.