debacle

A sudden and complete disaster or failure; a fiasco.

• (no common derivatives)

• complete debacle
• financial debacle
• political debacle
• public relations debacle
• end in debacle

1. 1.The product launch was a debacle — the app crashed within minutes and thousands of customers demanded refunds. (total failure)
2. 2.The military debacle at the border forced the government to rethink its entire defence strategy. (catastrophic defeat)

• fiasco/fiˈæskoʊ/— a complete and humiliating failure
• catastrophe/kəˈtæstrəfi/— a sudden disaster
• disaster/dɪˈzɑːstər/— an event causing great damage — more general

from French "débâcle" (a breaking up of ice on a river, a sudden flood) — dé- (un-) + bâcler (to bar) — the image of a dam breaking, releasing chaos