bâcler

Perhaps from unattested Middle French and Old French *bâcler, *bacler (“to hold in place, prop a door or window open”). From Vulgar Latin *bacculare, from Latin baculum (“rod, staff used for support”), from Proto-Indo-European *bak-. Indirectly attested in Old French desbacler (“to clear a harbour by getting ships unloaded to make room for incoming ships with lading”).

The hypothesis of a derivation from Middle Dutch bakkelen (“to freeze artificially, lock in place”), from bakken (“to stick, stick hard, glue together”) has been discredited by the lack of attestation of bakkelen in Middle Dutch and by it having only the meaning "freeze superficially" in Dutch.

• IPA^(key): /ba.kle/ ~ /bɑ.kle/

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bâcler

1. (transitive) to bang out (a task), to botch

• débâcler

• “bâcler”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.