botch

(of uncertain origin: to spoil; to bungle, to cause something to fail through carelessness or incompetence)

botch (s) (noun), botches (pl)
1. Making embarrassing mistakes or "making messes" of things by incompetence or a lack of skills.
2. A clumsy or poor piece of work; a mess; a bungle; a blooper; a fiasco: "John Kerry made a complete botch of his attempt to attack President George Bush and his Iraqi policies."
3. A disorderly or confused combination; a conglomeration.
botch (verb), botches; botched; botching
1. To make a mess of, to destroy, or to ruin by clumsiness.
2. To spoil by poor work; to bungle (often followed by up): "John Kerry botched up the joke and caused a national stir."
3. To do or to say in a bungling manner.
4. Etymology: before 1382, "to mend or patch", in the Wycliffe Bible; later "to spoil by unskillful work" from 1530.

To botch in professional wrestling refers to an attempt to do a scripted move that does not come out as it was originally planned because of a mistake, a miscalculation, or a slip-up.

Most wrestling botches are harmless although embarrassing; such as, when a wrestler simply botches a line or a cue, or falls before his opponent's planned move actually connects.

botch up (verb), botches up; botched up; botching up
1. To ruin through clumsiness, either mentally or physically.
2. To make or to perform clumsily; to bungle.
3. To blunder, to stumble, or to flounder.
4. Putting one's foot in one's mouth.
botched (adjective)
A description of something that has been done badly.
botcher (s) (noun), botchers (pl)
Someone who has severely harmed something, or someone, as a result of inept handling or an incompetent performance.

Senator John Kerry made the term botch a dominant part of U.S. vocabulary recently by being a prime example of a botcher

On Tuesday, October 31, 2006; Democrat Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, told a group of students in Pasadena, California:

"We're here to talk about education, but I want to say something before—education, if you make the most of it and you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you—you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Kerry subsequently insisted that he "botched" the delivery of the joke; he meant to say, "You get US stuck in Iraq; just ask President Bush."

"Of course, I'm sorry about a botched joke," Kerry said Wednesday (November 1, 2006) on MSNBC. "You cannot get into the military today if you do badly in school." He accused President Bush of twisting his words.

—Based on info from "An exit from Iraq is top issue for voters"
by Adam Nagourney and Megan Thee, International Herald Tribune,
Thursday, November 2, 2006; pages 1 & 6.
botchy (adjective), botchier, botchiest
Poorly made or done; bungled; unskillfully completed.