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“debacle”
1. A sudden disaster, defeat, or humiliating failure: The results of the election was a total debacle for the former mayor who lost by a large margin.
2. Unexpected, disastrous collapses or downfalls: When the stock market crashed in 1928, financiers viewed it as a debacle that was totally unexpected.
3. A complete lack of success: After the debacle of the author's first novel, he had difficulty getting another publisher to consider printing his next fictional story.
4. Etymology: originally, "breaking up of ice in a river, a disaster" from French debacle, "breaking up of ice, disaster", from debacler, "to free"; from Middle French débâcler, "to unbar" (de-, "off, un-", from Latin dis- + bacler, "to bar"; from Old Provencal baclar from Vulgar Latin bacculare; from bacculum, "bar, staff"; a variant of Latin baculum, "stick".
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2. Unexpected, disastrous collapses or downfalls: When the stock market crashed in 1928, financiers viewed it as a debacle that was totally unexpected.
3. A complete lack of success: After the debacle of the author's first novel, he had difficulty getting another publisher to consider printing his next fictional story.
4. Etymology: originally, "breaking up of ice in a river, a disaster" from French debacle, "breaking up of ice, disaster", from debacler, "to free"; from Middle French débâcler, "to unbar" (de-, "off, un-", from Latin dis- + bacler, "to bar"; from Old Provencal baclar from Vulgar Latin bacculare; from bacculum, "bar, staff"; a variant of Latin baculum, "stick".
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Word Entries at Get Words:
“debacle”
A great and sudden disaster, defeat, or humiliating failure. (1)
This entry is located in the following unit:
Word a Day Revisited Index of Cartoons Illustrating the Meanings of Words
(page 27)