What it means
To bottle it is British slang for losing your nerve and chickening out at the crucial moment, failing to go through with something because your courage deserts you. Here bottle means nerve or guts, so to bottle it is, oddly, to lose your bottle. The striker bottled the penalty, the comedian bottled it on stage: all that buildup, then nerve fails right at the brink.
Usage examples
"We dared him to jump in, but he bottled it at the edge."
"He was going to ask her out but bottled it at the last second."
"He was all set to ask for a raise and then bottled it the second he sat down."
"Don't bottle it now, you've rehearsed this speech a dozen times."
Other ways to say it
Editors of this term
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