[Cf. Ger. dial. fuseln, variously meaning ‘to work hurriedly and badly,’ ‘to work slowly’ (Grimm).]
1. intr. To waste one’s time, to fool.
1857. [see FOOZLING ppl. a.].
1893. in Stand. Dict.
2. trans. To do clumsily, ‘make a mess of’; to bungle (a stroke, etc.). Golf and slang. Also absol.
1892. Daily News, 14 Jan., 5/1. You ‘will’ your opponent to foozle his tee shot. Ibid. (1894), 18 Oct., 5/1. Had he taken to golf, he … might be living and foozling yet.
1894. Field, 9 June, 816/1. I have seen a man, a practised shot, foozle all his overhead rocketers with 30 in. barrels.
Hence Foozling ppl. a., in quot. foolish, ‘fooling.’ Also Foozler, one who foozles, a bungler.
1857. Hughes, Tom Brown, II. iii. (1871), 264. Let’s fill the bags, and have no more of this foozling bird’s-nesting.
1896. Clarion, 1 Feb., 40/5. A person who ‘mulls’ his stroke is said to be a ‘foozler.’
