Fiasco

For other uses, see Fiasco (disambiguation).

A fiasco means a complete or humiliating failure, especially of a pretentious undertaking. syn: fanasco

The Concise Oxford Dictionary gives fiascos as the plural, although fiascoes is also seen, especially in the United States.

The word is an Italian word meaning a "flask" or the type of round wine bottle, sometimes wrapped in straw, used traditionally for Chianti wine. The Concise Oxford notes that the allusion is unexplained, but various possibilities have been suggested. The more modern Compact Oxford Dictionary states that the word is borrowed from an Italian phrase far fiasco, literally "to make a bottle", figuratively "to fail [in a performance]". This is similar to the informal British English usage of "to bottle out" meaning to "lose one's nerve".

Some fiascos in history

The Mongols first attempt at invading Japan (1281); see Kamikaze.
The Spanish Armada attempted conquest of Britain (1588).
The launching of the Vasa (1628).
The Bay of Pigs invasion (1961).
The Japanese fifth generation computer systems project (1982–1993).
The dot-com bubble (1997-2001).
The Iridium project (1998-1999).

References

Concise Oxford Dictionary, s. v. fiasco
[Compact Oxford English Dictionary on-line]

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