Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US campus) to become confused, muddled.

1856		B.H. Hall College Words (rev. edn) 19: Ball up, at Middlebury College, to fail at recitation of examination.
1889		Salt Lake Herald (UT) 20 Oct. 16/1: I am not a good extempioraneous speaker, so I balled up on the prayer a good deal.
1896		Ade Artie (1963) 98: She had him balled up till he couldn’t say a word.
1903		Ade People You Know 111: He got balled up in his Arithmetic.
1910		‘O. Henry’ ‘The Gold that Glittered’ in Strictly Business (1915) 25: ‘You got balled up in the shuffle, didn’t you? Let me assist you.’ He picked up the General’s hat and brushed the dust from it.
1920		F.S. Fitzgerald This Side of Paradise in Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald III (1960) 136: He’s got me all balled up. Either I’ve misjudged him or he’s suddenly become the world’s worst radical.
1925		S. Lewis Arrowsmith 326: Say, Arrowsmith, do you ever get balled up about this saluting?
1939		Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl.
1941		E. Hemingway letter 12 Dec. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 533: All balled up so he didn’t know who was Gerald and Sara and who Scott and Zelda.
1949		A.I. Bezzerides Thieves’ Market 182: You’re trying to ball me up.
1954		R. Mais Brother Man (1966) 43: You only ball you’self up tryin’ to think about things besides that.

2. in trans. use, to confuse.

1900		‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 22: Ball-up, v. t. To confuse.
1912		H. MacAlpine ‘A Dog-House Detective’ in Railroad Man’s Mag. Mar. 🌐 That bump you got must have balled you all up.
1949		A.I. Bezzerides Thieves’ Market 182: You’re trying to ball me up.
1954		R. Mais Brother Man (1966) 43: You only ball you’self up tryin’ to think about things besides that.

3. to ruin, to make a mess of, to clog up, to confuse, to botch.

1884		C.F. Lummis letter 30 Oct. in Byrkit Letters from the Southwest (1989) 53: There are a dozen different ways of carrrying it; but that knapsack balls me all up.
1885		‘Mark Twain’ Letters (1917) II xxv. 445: It will ‘ball up’ the binderies again.
1914		R. Lardner You Know Me Al (1984) 106: If you go in and talk right to Comiskey I believe he will give you $3000 but you must be sure you [...] don’t go and ball it all up.
1918		‘Max Brand’ ‘Above the Law’ in Coll. Stories (1994) 46: To think I had balled up everything by flashing a small-time act on a big-time stage.
1920		S. Lewis Main Street (1921) 50: I simply can’t understand all these complications and hoop-te-doodles and government reports [...] that these fellows are balling up the labour situation with.
1923		Wodehouse Leave it to Psmith (1993) 515: Unless you ball up your end of it, Ed, it can’t fail to drag home the gravy.
1932		E.S. Gardner ‘Bird in the Hand’ in Goulart (1967) 273: Don’t ball things all up trying to be intellectual.
1941		‘The Heavy Bombers’ in C.H. Ward-Jackson Airman’s Song Book (1945) 143: The navigator’s balled up, the wireless balled as well.
1947		W.D. Overholser Buckaroo’s Code (1948) 74: I sure hate to walk through gumbo when it’s wet [...] Balls up your feet something awful.
1953		R. Mais Hills were Joyful Together (1966) 149: I wouldn’t make a woman ball me up like that. I’d see her dead in a ditch.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 31: Bollix up, which is the same as the newer ball up (foul up, or balls-up in British English).
2020		S.A. Crosby Blacktop Wasteland 77: ‘I ain’t trying to wake up to three hots and a cot because you gonna ball up like a baby when the work goes down’’.