Definition of "foul-up" [foul-up]

• A condition of confusion caused by mistakes or poor judgment. (noun)
• A mechanical failure. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Flakes melted onto wet streets as snowplows – some equipped with global positioning devices since the blizzard foul-up – and salt spreaders sat idle in neighborhoods all over the city."
• "Flakes melted onto wet streets as snowplows — some equipped with global positioning devices since the blizzard foul-up — and salt spreaders sat idle in neighborhoods all over the city."
• "As a young BBC producer in the mid-1980s, I once wrote him a note to apologize for a foul-up that had left him hanging around a studio, wasting time."