debacle
Pronunciation Noun
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Pronunciation Noun
debacle (plural debacles)
- An event or enterprise that ends suddenly and disastrously, often with humiliating consequences. [from early 19th c.]
- 1952, Maimonides, translated by Boaz Cohen, Epistle to Yemen page 5,
- The event proved to be a great debacle for the partisans of this prognosticator.
- 1996, Richard L. Canby, "SOF: An Alternative Perspective on Doctrine", in Schultz et al (eds), Roles And Missions of SOF In The Aftermath Of The Cold War, p. 188 ↗,
- The result is a military approach which maximizes political tensions with Russia […] and lays the ground for a military debacle.
- 2002, Jacqueline West, South America, Central America and the Caribbean 2002, Routledge, ISBN 1-857431-21-9, page 68,
- The Falklands-Malvinas débâcle provided the opportunity to restructure the military High Command; Alfonsín removed anti-democratic senior officers and replaced them with more co-operative ones.
- 2007, BP pipeline failure: hearing before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, "Statement by Peter Van Tuyn", p. 46 ↗,
- The BP Prudhoe Bay debacle [the Prudhoe Bay oil spill] thus provides but the latest in a long line of reasons why leasing this region of the NPR-A is a bad idea.
- 1952, Maimonides, translated by Boaz Cohen, Epistle to Yemen page 5,
- (ecology) A breaking up of a natural dam, usually made of ice, by a river and the ensuing rush of water.
- 1836, Henry De La Beche, How to Observe: Geology, p. 69 ↗
- […] so that in extreme cases the latter may even be dammed up for a time, and a debacle be the consequence, when the main river overcomes the resistance opposed to it, […]
- 1837, John Lee Comstock, Outlines of Geology, p. 51 ↗
- For several months after the debacle just described, the river Dranse, having no settled channel, shifted its position continually […]
- 1872, Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, p. 425 ↗,
- When this débâcle commences […] , the masses of ice, drifting with the current and unable to pass, are hurled upon those already soldered together; thus an enormous barrier is formed […]
- 1836, Henry De La Beche, How to Observe: Geology, p. 69 ↗
- (An event or enterprise that ends suddenly and disastrously) fiasco
- French: fiasco, débâcle
- German: Debakel
- Italian: fiasco
- Portuguese: fiasco
- Russian: фиа́ско
- Spanish: debacle, desastre
- French: débâcle
- Italian: frantumazione
- Russian: ледохо́д
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003