as in shambles
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Recent Examples of Synonyms for cock-up
Noun
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This might seem like a minor quibble, but the fact that the new movie botches the whole wait-what-did-they-actually-do-last-summer thing speaks to a prevailing sense of laziness.—
Bilge Ebiri,
Vulture,
16 July 2025 -
The 10-member panel’s first time out, in 2022, was a total botch, as the process was unconstitutionally hijacked by Democrats in the Legislature until it was stopped by the state’s highest court.—
New York Daily News Editorial Board,
New York Daily News,
19 June 2025
Noun
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Here's why some deodorants curse our clothes with a hard-to-clean mess—and what to do about it.—
Alexandra Emanuelli,
Southern Living,
20 Sep. 2025
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Photo by Joe Portlock/Getty Images The British driver lost time at Turn 15, where Leclerc crashed earlier, but the entire lap was a mess as the MCL39 struggled for grip.—
Nelson Espinal,
MSNBC Newsweek,
20 Sep. 2025
Noun
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Just as social media makes legacy media apparatus look sluggish by comparison, prediction markets expose traditional polls and surveys for being tainted by bias (see the 2016 Clinton fiasco).—
Atharva Gosavi,
Interesting Engineering,
17 Sep. 2025
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Long ago, most normal people concluded that this fiasco should be abandoned.—
Steve Forbes,
Forbes.com,
17 Sep. 2025
Noun
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At the moment, official policy appears to be a complete muddle.—
Bill McKibben,
New Yorker,
26 Aug. 2025
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Direct lines of contact between the two powers devolved into a muddle of nuclear threats, insults and ultimatums.—
Simon Shuster,
Time,
8 Aug. 2025
Noun
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This includes adding redundancy to vital systems, segmenting networks so that a compromise in one area does not spread unchecked, and developing explicit incident response processes that incorporate both cyber and physical disaster management.—
Chuck Brooks,
Forbes.com,
19 Sep. 2025
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Last year alone, disasters costing $11 billion hit Florida, according to data from the National Centers for Environmental Information, with a total cost between $300 billion and $450 billion from 1980 to 2024.—
Giulia Carbonaro,
MSNBC Newsweek,
19 Sep. 2025
Noun
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More Nostalgia, Please In the rebranding debacle and the poor judgment that led up to it, the company decided that to attract new customers, a complete top-down brand overhaul was required.—
Pamela N. Danziger,
Forbes.com,
18 Sep. 2025
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Anita, reflecting on the debacle today, still shakes her head in sorrow.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
17 Sep. 2025
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“Cock-up.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cock-up. Accessed 21 Sep. 2025.
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