my bad

English

Etymology

Pick-up basketball slang popularized (but not first coined) by Manute Bol, a basketball player of Sudanese origin playing with the Golden State Warriors, and subsequently adopted by teammates.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Interjection

my bad

1. (colloquial, idiomatic) My fault; mea culpa.

   Yes, I realise the car isn't supposed to be parked in the heirloom flowerbed. My bad.

   • 1995, Amy Heckerling, Clueless:

     DMV Tester: Watch out for the bike rid…!
     Cher: [swerving car to avoid cyclist] Oops! My bad!

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:my bad.

Synonyms

• mea culpa

Translations

my fault

• Danish: min fejl
• Finnish: minun vikani, minun moka (colloquial)
• French: autant pour moi (fr)
• German: mein Fehler
• Hungarian: az én hibám, az én saram, én tehetek róla, én vagyok a hunyó, tévedtem
• Latin: mea culpa
• Polish: mój błąd m, moja wina f, mea culpa (pl)
• Portuguese: foi mal
• Russian: мой кося́к (moj kosják) (slang)
• Spanish: mala mía, perdón (es)
• Turkish: benim hatam

Further reading

• “my bad”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• Businessballs.com cliches and expressions origins