fuckup
Pluralfuckups
- 1A serious error.
Whose fuckup was it that left the freezer door open all night?
The launch was one fuckup after another, from the typos to the broken checkout page.
Similarmistake, blunder, screwup, error, cock-up
Note
The noun is the phrasal verb fuck up folded into one word, and it keeps the verb's full vulgar force: it suits rueful or angry talk among people who swear together, not the office. Stephen King's Firestarter (1980) uses it as a cry of dismay, what a fuckup. Where the f-word would offend, screwup says the same thing.
- 2A person who constantly makes mistakes.
He spent his twenties convinced he was a fuckup who would never hold down a job.
The new manager wasted no time firing the two biggest fuckups on the team.
Similarscrewup
Note
Turned on a person, the word becomes an insult as well as a vulgarity: it writes someone off as bound to get things wrong. It takes intensifiers readily (a colossal fuckup), and John Hodge's Shallow Grave (1994) spells it with a hyphen, fuck-ups. People also use it of themselves, half joking and half not.
- 3An insulting word for a person who is mentally or emotionally damaged.
After the divorce he described himself as an emotional fuckup who pushed everyone away.
The novel's hero is a lonely fuckup still haunted by the way his father treated him.
Note
This is the harshest use of the word, because it treats emotional or mental damage as a failing, and many hearers find that offensive. Where the habitual blunderer is judged on what they do, this sense judges what someone is. If it is used at all, it is safest said of oneself or put in a character's mouth.
Practice
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Origin
A noun formed from the phrasal verb fuck up.