fiasco
/fɪˈaskəʊ
/noun (plural fiascos)
A complete failure, especially a ludicrous or humiliating one: his plans turned into a fiasco...
- If Namibia was a real constitutional democracy, President Nujoma should have been called to clear up scandals, fiascos and debacles that have characterized, mainly, the last five years of his rule.
- At the start of the new millennium, the corporate world witnessed major fiascos and ethical blunders.
- It was a fiasco and a disaster, but the courage of the soldiers impressed even the Russians.
Synonyms
failure, disaster, catastrophe, debacle, shambles, farce, mess, wreck, ruin, ruination, blunder, botch, abortion
informal flop, washout, dud, hash, lead balloon, foul-up, screw-up, fail
British informal pig's ear, cock-up, car crash
North American informal snafu
Australian/New Zealand informal fizzer
vulgar slang fuck-up, balls-up
Origin
Mid 19th century: from Italian, literally 'bottle, flask', in the phrase far fiasco, literally 'make a bottle', figuratively 'fail in a performance': the reason for the figurative sense is unexplained.
A fiasco is a ridiculous or humiliating failure. The word was borrowed from Italian in the 19th century. In that language it meant originally ‘a bottle’, but the phrase far fiasco, literally ‘make a bottle’, was used in the theatre to mean ‘fail in a performance’. In medieval English a flask (Middle English) was a cask or skin for holding liquor. The word came from medieval Latin flasca (along with LME flagon) but the 17th-century sense ‘glass container’ was influenced by Italian fiasco.