Word.ws English Dictionary

bottles it

bottles it is the third-person singular simple present indicative of bottle it.

Meaning of bottle it

Verb

bottle it (third-person singular simple present bottles it, present participle bottling it, simple past and past participle bottled it)

  1. (Cockney, UK, informal, slang) To suppress an action or expression, especially when due to lack of courage.
  2. (Cockney, UK, informal, slang) To lose one's nerve.
  3. (Cockney, UK, informal, slang) To run away, especially when due to lack of courage.
  4. (Cockney, UK, especially, informal, slang) To fail in an embarrassing way in a crucial situation, especially due to nerves.
    • For a while, it was a three-horse race and, if anything, it looked like José Mourinho's Chelsea were the team to beat. Chelsea bottled it, Liverpool beat Manchester City and the title was theirs to lose ... which they did in that match against Chelsea.2022 October 6, James Richardson, The Totally Football Book, Hachette UK, →ISBN

Questions about bottles it

What is bottles it the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Bottles it is the third-person singular simple present indicative of bottle it.

Words near bottles it in the dictionary

  1. bottler
  2. bottlers
  3. bottles
  4. bottles away
  5. bottles down
  6. bottles it
  7. bottles of wine
  8. bottles off
  9. bottles out
  10. bottles up
  11. bottlescrew

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bottles it (page history and authors); bottle it (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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