bun·gle

(bŭng′gəl)

v. bun·gled, bun·gling, bun·gles

v.tr.

To carry out badly or ruin through ineptitude; botch. See Synonyms at botch.

v.intr.

To work or act ineptly or inefficiently.

A clumsy or inept performance; a botch: made a bungle of the case due to inexperience.

[Perhaps of Scandinavian origin.]

bun′gler n.

bun′gling·ly adv.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Mentioned in

bungle

References in periodicals archive

A memo bunglingly left in full view of journalists at the emergency announcement revealed there was to be a concerted effort to make Ruddock look weak and the WRU authoritative.

Our national game needs total overhaul

He never did more in the way of writing than to bunglingly sign his own name."

In the Footsteps of Lincoln - What do the formative years of abraham lincoln, who was reared among uneducated backwoodsmen of the kentucky and indiana frontier, reveal about the lawyer president who freed the slaves and saved the union?

And right from his opening scene, where he's close to driving a Customs official at Heathrow suicidal, Murray shows that he's well cast as the bunglingly innocent and unlikely hero.

Billy is king of the bungle; THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE (12)

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