[f. BOTCH v.1 (Sometimes indistinguishable from fig. use of the prec.)]
1. A botched place or part, a flaw or blemish resulting from unskilful workmanship.
1605. Shaks., Macb., III. i. 133. To leaue no Rubs nor Botches in the Worke.
1645. Milton, Tetrarch., Wks. 1738, I. 244. Let it stick as a notorious botch of deformity.
2. fig. A clumsy patch; a meaningless or unsuitable word added for the sake of rhyme or meter.
1693. Dennis, Impart. Critick, iii. 25. Every Epithet is to be look’d upon as a Botch, which does not add to the thought.
1707. Swift, On Union, Wks. 1755, IV. I. 283. By way of botch She piec’d it up again with scotch.
1780. Wesley, Wks. (1872), XIV. 341. In these Hymns there is no doggerel, no botches.
1861. Beresf. Hope, Eng. Cathedr. 19th C., 220. The difficulties of accommodation are honestly recognised and boldly grappled with, not by botches and makeshifts, [etc.].
† b. A mark like a clumsy patch, a blotch. Obs.
1715. Lond. Gaz., No. 5365/4. The other 4 [Sheep] cropt on the Right Ear, and a black Botch on the Left Hipp.
3. A bungled piece of work. So botch-work.
1648. Herrick, Hesper., I. 104. Learne of me what woman is, Something made of thred and thrumme; A mere botch of all and some.
1845. Ld. Campbell, Chancellors (1857), III. lvi. 130. When the writer tries to be light and airy, we have such a botch as might have been expected.
1870. Hawthorne, Eng. Note-bks. (1879), I. 187. I have made a miserable botch of this description.
1876. Hamerton, Intell. Life, II. ii. 406. Vastness of the interval, that separates botch-work from handicraft.
b. fig.
1864. Eliz. Murray, E. Norman, I. 159. The men were not to be trusted, most of them being convicts, or ‘botches’ of one kind or other.
4. = BOTCHER sb.1 dial.
1855. Whitby Gloss., A Botch, a cobbler.
