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• foul-up
  foul-up

  noun

  a condition of difficulty or disorder brought on by inefficiency, stupidity, etc.
• foul up
  foul up

  verb

  (tr) to bungle; mismanage

foul-up

American  

[foul-uhp] / ˈfaʊlˌʌp /

noun

Informal.

1. a condition of difficulty or disorder brought on by inefficiency, stupidity, etc.

2. failure of a mechanical part to operate correctly.

3. a person who habitually makes mistakes; bungler.

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foul up British  

verb

1. (tr) to bungle; mismanage

2. (tr) to make dirty; contaminate

3. to be or cause to be blocked, choked, or entangled

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noun

1. a state of confusion or muddle caused by bungling

foul up Idioms  

1. Blunder or cause to blunder; botch, ruin. For example, He's fouled up this report, but I think we can fix it, or Our plans were fouled up by the bad weather. This expression is widely believed to have originated as a euphemism for fuck up. [Colloquial; c. 1940]

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Etymology

Origin of foul-up

1950–55, noun use of verb phrase foul up

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

foul-up foul up

Rumors, recently debunked, spread that the town fired two workers over the foul-up, though neither processed payments.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026

“The reason why you wouldn’t check a bag is that eliminates one of the foul-up points,” Brancatelli said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 16, 2023

The payment foul-up comes amid an atmosphere of pronounced dysfunction for Washington’s beleaguered football franchise.

From Washington Times ● Oct. 19, 2022

His own error dropped him from third to sixth in Imola, followed by the Barcelona engine failure and the strategy foul-up that turned a win into a fourth place in Monaco.

From BBC ● Jun. 7, 2022

A mistake, maybe — a foul-up in the paperwork.

From "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

In the end, though, neither an explosion nor a giant spill of fluid that could foul up waterways and the ocean occurred.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 27, 2026

What we want to do here is foul up the hard drive platters, the spinning discs that our data is meticulously placed upon.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 8, 2022

“So for us to foul up those two, that part we know we can get corrected.”

From Washington Times ● Oct. 1, 2018

Self-deleting messages can also foul up long-established record-retention practices and, for some federal employees, they may constitute a violation of the law.

From New York Times ● Jul. 6, 2017

I partly blame all those dopes that clap their heads off--they'd foul up anybody, if you gave them a chance.

From "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger