Crossword clues for bungling
bungling
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Bungle \Bun"gle\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Bungled; p. pr. & vb. n. Bungling.] [Prob. a diminutive from, akin to bang; cf. Prov. G. bungen to beat, bang, OSw. bung
See Bang.] To act or work in a clumsy, awkward manner.
Bungling \Bun"gling\, a.
Unskillful; awkward; clumsy; as, a bungling workman.
--Swift.
They make but bungling work.
--Dryden.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1660s, verbal noun from bungle (v.).
1580s, past participle adjective from bungle (v.). Related: Bunglingly.
Wiktionary
incompetent or inept n. An act or acts of incompetence or ineptitude. v
(present participle of bungle English)
WordNet
adj. showing lack of skill or aptitude; "a bungling workman"; "did a clumsy job"; "his fumbling attempt to put up a shelf" [syn: clumsy, fumbling, incompetent]
not skillful in physical movement especially with the hands; "a bumbling mechanic"; "a bungling performance"; "ham-handed governmental interference"; "could scarcely empty a scuttle of ashes, so handless was the poor creature"- Mary H. Vorse [syn: bumbling, butterfingered, ham-fisted, ham-handed, handless, heavy-handed, left-handed]
Usage examples of "bungling".
The world groaned as at an old joke, but Starr admired this bungling fool.
But even I am forced to admit that they are a ridiculous people, just as one must confess that the British are bungling, the Italians incompetent, the Americans neurotic, the Germans romantically savage, the Arabs vicious, the Russians barbaric, and the Dutch make cheese.
Starr, but it must be admitted that since certain bunglings of CIA-trained men led to the downfall of a most friendly and cooperative President, our confidence in that organization has not been without limits.
Poona, and when trouble is made, think you that the Dewan will thank us for the bungling of this?
Every day he took the same route, past the drunks bungling round the DHS emergency payout place in Upper Woburn Place, then the Kosovans washing car windscreens while their women begged at the corner of Upper Woburn Place and the Euston Road, after that Eversholt Street past Transformations then more drunks at the start of Camden High Street.
Nabokov narrowly escaped being christened Victor by a bungling archpresbyter in a ceremony at 47 Morskaya.
Don Lucifer di SEmbowelli Borgia had ordered the concrete over-shoeing in revenge for not only bungling his nose job, but also for the rat-tail that post surgery he had discovered dangling from his rear and the rattish squeakings that he now emitted every time he opened his mouth .
Colonel Hogan tricking Schultz into giving him the keys to the stalag gate -- again, this is redolent of Forties propaganda flicks, which portrayed Axis leaders as bungling and clownish.
Starr, but it must be admitted that since certain bunglings of CIA-trained men led to the downfall of a most friendly and cooperative President, our confidence in that organization has not been without limits.
It was Tigellinus' own son-in-law, Cossutianus Capito, who had served as bungling prosecutor at Pomponia's hearing!
Mauvin, as he followed her out, handed me one of Pyrullo's fliers, from which I learned that it was high time to dispense with the bungling of irresponsible amateurs who couldn't tell dynamite from melinite, or fulminate mercury from a simple Bickford fuse.
Planetary stresses, the bunglings of motile machines out of control, and fatigue of materials had not spared the riser pipe or the overhead tube.
There was no coup when Johnson and McNamara were bungling the Vietnam War, no night of the generals when Nixon was sullying the presidency or Clinton was selling it.