bottle it
English
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bottle it
Where it comes from
From Cockney rhyming slang bottle and glass, originally meaning arse. lose one's nerve was vulgarly lose one's arse, euphemised to lose one's bottle, clipped to bottle and subsequently given a dummy pronoun. See bottle.
verb bottles it · bottling it · bottled it
- To suppress an action or expression, especially when due to lack of courage.
- To lose one's nerve.
- To run away, especially when due to lack of courage.
- To fail in an embarrassing way in a crucial situation, especially due to nerves. For a while, it was a three-horse race and, if anything, it looked like José Mourinho's Chelsea were the team to beat. Chelsea bottled it, Liverpool beat Manchester City and the title was theirs to lose ... which they did in that match against Chelsea.
Talk about this word "bottle it." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/bottle%20it. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. bottle it. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/bottle%20it "bottle it." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/bottle%20it.Cite this
@misc{bottle_it_2026,
title = {bottle it},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/bottle%20it},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
