fiasco
Americannoun
plural
fiascos, fiascoes-
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
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.
The final straw was the 2020 fiasco when exams were cancelled and teachers estimated results for students.
From BBC • May 11, 2026
The 2019 screen fiasco, which found countless ways to humiliate a cast that included Taylor Swift and Judi Dench, gave kitsch a bad name.
From Los Angeles Times • May 1, 2026
The question now is whether this fiasco turns the temperature up again.
From BBC • Apr. 20, 2026
Their relative normalcy, and that of fellow marrieds Amber Morrison and Jordan Faeth, is a soothing contrast to the textbook Fusco fiasco and the rest of the season’s red flag bearers.
From Salon • Mar. 8, 2026
I told him about the butter fiasco and asked him when he’d planned on giving me the necklace.
From "The Line Tender" by Kate Allen
Definitions 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.
