fiasco
Americannoun
-
fiascos,
plural
-
fiascoes
plural
-
a complete and ignominious failure.
- Synonyms:
- bomb, flop, debacle, catastrophe, disaster
-
a round-bottomed glass flask for wine, especially Chianti, fitted with a woven, protective raffia basket that also enables the bottle to stand upright.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of fiasco
1850–55; < Italian: literally, bottle < Germanic ( see flask 1); sense “failure” from Italian phrase far fiasco to fail, literally, to make a bottle, idiom of uncertain origin
Explanation
A fiasco is a disaster. It's not a natural disaster — like an earthquake or a volcano; a fiasco is usually the result of human failure. Fiasco comes from the Italian term that means "to make a bottle." How it came to describe an utter, embarrassing, disaster in the English language is still unknown. Today, you'll hear fiasco used in situations that have gone so horribly awry that they are almost laughable, like the Thanksgiving dinner fiasco in which the turkey burnt to a crisp, the dog ate all the side dishes, and everyone had to eat frozen pizza instead.
Vocabulary lists containing fiasco
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
While that dry spell will draw empty stares from fans in Seattle, Pittsburgh or San Diego, it’s a fiasco for a franchise that’s won 27 of them and regards October silverware as its birthright.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
The not-so-Super Rams return to the scene of that fiasco on Sunday.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2026
Every failure is fuel for the next fiasco.
From Salon ● Oct. 2, 2026
For some of those companies, the Strait of Hormuz fiasco has been a stock boost.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 1, 2026
Her hands were now planted firmly on her hips and there was a look on her face which seemed to say, ‘I want no part of this fiasco.’
From "The BFG" by Roald Dahl
More often it’s how mistakes turn into fiascoes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
One can only hope that these are growing pains, that as with early dubbing fiascoes, the streaming services will realize that writing and editing around commercials is an art form in itself.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2025
To celebrate such mistakes, mishaps and melees, read on for 10 of the funniest parenting fiascoes that made headlines this year.
From Fox News ● Dec. 30, 2020
The good news is the state report makes multiple recommendations that, if followed, should help Florida’s universities avoid future accounting fiascoes, while strengthening boards of trustees and the Board of Governors, which oversees universities.
From Washington Times ● Mar. 13, 2019
What happened next changed history and resulted in one of America's most tragic medical fiascoes.
From "Ambushed!" by Gail Jarrow
The latest example: This weekend’s follies in the NFC East, where a pair of victories were lost in baffling last-second fiascos that showed the humble limits of human function.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026
One would think fiascos like this would cure lawyers of their reliance on artificial intelligence chatbots to do their work for them.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2025
Live Nation, the group behind Ticketmaster and countless controversies surrounding ticket fiascos, is facing a Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit later this week.
From Salon ● May 23, 2024
Interviews in Barcelona and with executives around the world suggest that a year’s worth of fiascos has done little to diminish the enthusiasm of true believers.
From New York Times ● Jan. 17, 2023
The result is fiascos like South Korea where a 60 billion USD aid package was consumed in days without providing any discernible betterment of the economic situation.
From After the Rain : how the West lost the East by Samuel Vaknin
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
