ballocks (up), v. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

ballocks (up) v.

also bolix up, bollix (up), bollox (up), bollux up

to ruin, to make a mess of.

1902		Debris (Purdue U.) 14 25: I was never any other way except all bollixed up on that E.M.F. formula.
1938		J. Weidman I Can Get It For You Wholesale 36: You’re getting your cues all bollixed up.
1945		A. Kober Parm Me 181: My client’s business is gonna get all bollixed up.
1946		New Yorker 17 Aug. 12/3: I bollixed the plot by deliberately playing the wrong number at the wrong time.
1949		Modern Lang. Notes LXIV 4: No such feeling, however, attaches to ballocks up, A young woman of unimpeachable modesty shocked her elderly uncle [by] employing the phrase as learned from his own lips.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 31/2: Bollix. To bungle.
1953		J. Thompson Alcoholics (1993) 3: He would stand accused of failure, of bollixing a job.
1954		J. Steinbeck Sweet Thursday (1955) 208: He got himself all bollixed up.
1960		C. MacInnes Mr Love and Justice (1964) 112: I hope your private investigations haven’t b---d up the situation prematurely.
1962		S. Longstreet Flesh Peddlers (1964) 134: Somehow everything seemed all bolixed up with my love life.
1967		E. Shepard Doom Pussy 212: She’s bollixed it up good now.
1969		M. Puzo Godfather 130: They got their assignments bollixed.
1973		T. Lewis Billy Rags [ebook] All that had happened was that someone had ballocksed up the hook.
1979		J. Morrow Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 3: For one wild moment I came near to bollixing it all by asking, ‘What six stens?’.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 25: It doesn’t seem to cross your tiny mind that your being breathalysed totally bolluxed up my evening. [Ibid.] 266: If you mess around with her and bollix things up for the rest of us [...] I’ll give you more than a flash.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 201: His recent plans [have all been] bolloxed by the fuck-ups and rank amateurs he’s forced to work with.
2007		T. Dorsey Hurricane Punch 167: The story bollixed the results of an internal affairs case.
2009		T. Black Gutted 71: I wouldn’t want you to bollocks your proper grown-up police procedures.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 60: ‘I’m training for the ’56 Olympics and I don’t want to bolix that up’.
2023		M. Herron Secret Hours 50: [T]he respect of his peers for a job not bollixed.

In phrases

ballocks about (v.) (also ballocks around, bollix around, bollocks about, …around)

1. to mess about, to play the fool.

1953		J. Thompson Alcoholics (1993) 29: Bollixing around with that correspondence course crap.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 44/1: C.20.

2. to infuriate, to waste someone’s time, to be indecisive.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 44/1: C.20.