fiasco
Say it: fee-AS-koh /fiˈæskəʊ/ · noun
What “fiasco” means
Something that goes completely and embarrassingly wrong.
More precisely: A complete, humiliating failure.
Example: “The product launch was a fiasco: the demo crashed twice on stage.”
When to use it
Use it for a badly failed event or plan, especially when the failure is public and embarrassing. It sounds strongly critical.
Similar words
disaster, debacle, flop
Where it comes from
Italian, 'bottle'; how it came to mean failure is unclear.
Quick check
At the school concert, the sound fails, the curtain jams and nobody remembers their cue. The evening becomes…
a setback or a fiasco?
Show the answer
a fiasco
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