Also 4 bocchyn, 5–6 botche. [ME. bocche-n, of uncertain etymology: having apparently no original relation to BOTCH sb.1, though the words may have subsequently influenced each other. Prof. Skeat suggests for the vb. a LG. origin, comparing MDu. butsen, (1) to strike, beat, (2) to repair (Oudemans), app. related to Du. botsen to knock, dash, Ger. dial. butschen, butzen to strike, knock; according to Franck an onomatopæic word of echoic origin. But the sense ‘repair’ in Du. butsen seems to be recent, while in English it appears in Wyclif: also there is no sense ‘knock’ in English, so that connection with the continental words is very doubtful. Perhaps the Eng. word is an onomatopœia related in its genesis to ‘patch’; cf. Ger. batzen to patch. See BODGE.]
1. trans. To make good or repair (a defect, damage, damaged article); to patch, mend. Now only: to repair clumsily or imperfectly. Often with up.
1382. Wyclif, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 10. That thei enstoren the temple, and eche feble thingus thei bocchyn [1388 reparele alle feble thingis].
1530. Palsgr., 461/1. I botche or patche an olde garment … I have botched my hosen at the heles.
1551. Robinson, trans. More’s Utop. (Arb.), 69. Sicke bodies … to be kept and botched up.
a. 1680. Butler, Rem. (1759), II. 200. He does not mend his Manners, but botch them with Patches of another Stuff and Colour.
1863. Fawcett, Pol. Econ., IV. ii. 535. Botching and patching each single tax.
b. absol. To do repairs; to patch clumsily.
1580. Tusser, Husb. (1878), 166. Cobble and botch, ye that cannot buie new.
1730. Swift, Dan Jackson’s Pict., Wks. 1755, IV. I. 249. At last I’m fairly forc’d to botch for’t.
1815. Scott, Guy M., xxi. I labour and botch … and produce at last a base caricature.
1865. [see BOTCHING vbl. sb.2]
2. To spoil by unskilful work; to bungle.
1530. Palsgr., 461/1. To botche or bungyll a garment as he dothe that is nat a perfyte workeman.
1663. Pepys, Diary, 26 April. Tom coming, with whom I was angry for his botching my camlott coat.
1850. Blackie, Æschylus, I. 293. This chorus seems hopelessly botched … and all attempts to mend it are more or less unsatisfactory.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls., I. 292. The greatest bungler that ever botched a block of marble.
3. fig. trans. To put or stitch together clumsily or unskilfully; to construct or compose in a bungling manner. Often with up, together.
1561. T. N[orton], Calvin’s Inst., III. v. (1634), 319. Augustines booke of repentance … botched of good and bad by some scraper together.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iv. 411. An ill-agreeing Drama, botch’d up of many impertinent Intersertions.
1768. Tucker, Lt. Nat., II. 124. One or two of Horace’s purple rags botched together with coarse seams of abuse.
b. To add as a patch.
1589. Pappe w. Hatchet (1844), 39. Botching in such frize iestes vppon fustion earnest.
1656. [see BOTCHING vbl. sb.2]
