ball up

Verb

ball up (third-person singular simple present balls up, present participle balling up, simple past and past participle balled up)

1. (transitive) To crush or form into a ball shape.
   • She balled up her paper in frustration.
   1. (transitive) To form melted metals into balls or lumps to roll them out of a furnace for further use.
2. (ambitransitive) To coil up into a ball.
   • He balled up his fists, ready to fight.
3. (intransitive) To become ball-shaped.
   • Be careful, or the metal will ball up.
4. (intransitive) To hunch over and pull in one's arms and legs.
   • Her son balls up in fear whenever there is a storm.
5. (slang, transitive) To ruin or botch.
   • The best man balled up his speech, stammering and tripping over his words.
   • "They got it all balled up the night I seen it," says Bishop. "The actors forgot their lines and a man couldn't make heads or tails of it."1916, Ring W. Lardner, “Three Kings and a Pair”, in The Saturday Evening Post

   Synonyms:

   balls up, blight, bumble, botch, bugger up, bungle, contaminate, corrupt, crab, deprave

6. (intransitive, slang) To smoke marijuana.
   • Nah bro, I ain't tryna ball up tonight. I gotta focus on my studies.
   • someone give those mans snapping themselves balling up on their sc story a hug bro they're just lonely2018 December 11, @artemnooo, Twitter, archived from the original on 09 Oct 2023
7. (intransitive) To play basketball, especially playing well.
8. (intransitive, slang) To switch to using a stronger bowling ball.

   Antonyms:

   ball down

9. To become covered in damp snow.
10. (intransitive) To produce a lip of debris around the drill hole.
11. (US, dated, intransitive, slang, transitive) To become confused or discombobulated; to confuse (someone).