bungle

She wasn’t about to bungle the sighting for her client, a photographer who’d flown to Africa for this exact moment.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026

Add the examples from psychology and the bungle we're making of the Earth we "manage," and humans don't have good evidence to put ourselves at the top of some kind of evolutionary hierarchy after all.

From Salon ● May 29, 2025

So, yes, let’s hold college presidents’ feet to the fire when they bungle on a major issue.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 17, 2023

Farmer: I thought the Chargers might lose, as we’ve seen before, but they had the good fortune of playing an opponent that also has a tendency to bungle victories within their grasp.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2023

And this time I will not bungle things!

From "The Golden Goblet" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

Its title comes from a Delhi University slang: to "give it those ones" is to perform one's usual act - bungles included.

From BBC ● Feb. 13, 2026

That’s become a common theme for many of the bungles where AI is involved: It’s not the tool, but the user.

From Washington Times ● Dec. 24, 2023

Charlotte and George marry, then George immediately bungles their budding marital bliss.

From Salon ● May 6, 2023

But if those were my worst bungles in 12 months, I’ll settle for them.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 1, 2023

Finally Vaubois bungles, through not knowing the ground, and is put under the orders of Massena, while two of his half-brigades are severely censured by Napoleon in person for their cowardice.

From Napoleon's Letters to Josephine by Henry Foljambe Hall

His graduation wasn’t until June, but the bungled war effort urgently needed a fresh crop of officers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

On the hard-news side, she bungled big moments like an interview with Vladimir Putin, who batted away her questions about 2016 election meddling with an exasperated performance of ignorance.

From Slate ● May 6, 2026

Her claims have triggered demonstrations, promises to tighten the law and criticism that Chancellor Friedrich Merz has bungled his response.

From BBC ● Mar. 28, 2026

South Korea's former president Yoon Suk Yeol capped a remarkable fall from grace on Thursday when he was sentenced to life imprisonment over his bungled efforts to impose military rule.

From Barron's ● Feb. 19, 2026

Yet when the United States captured its first Nazi spy in 1938, the FBI bungled the case.

From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield

All of this might be chalked up to bureaucratic bungling, if not for suspicious details.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 5, 2026

Bernthal, who plays Sonny, has his own wayward machismo and hapless sensitivity, the very qualities that made Al Pacino unforgettable in the role of the bungling bandit with a Catholic conscience.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 29, 2026

The Lions completed a historic comeback, with a little help from a bungling David Campese.

From BBC ● Jun. 22, 2025

Funneled into the framework of a prom slasher, the bungling of "Fear Street: Prom Queen" feels downright pernicious.

From Salon ● May 24, 2025

In a way this was Finny’s view, except that naturally he saw it comically, as a huge and intensely practical joke, played by fat and foolish old men bungling away behind the scenes.

From "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles