debacle
Plural: debacles
Noun
- A sudden, disastrous collapse or failure.
- a sudden and violent collapse
- flooding caused by a tumultuous breakup of ice in a river during the spring or summer
- a sound defeat
- An event or enterprise that ends suddenly and disastrously, often with humiliating consequences.
- A breaking up of a natural dam, usually made of ice, by a river and the ensuing rush of water.
Examples
- His attempt at a fancy ’QI’ play ended in a DEBACLE when he forgot the adjacent letter.
Origin / Etymology
From French débâcle, from débâcler (“to unbar; unleash”) from prefix dé- (“un-”) + bâcler (“to dash, bind, bar, block”) [perhaps from unattested Middle French and Old French *bâcler, *bacler (“to hold in place, prop a door or window open”)], from Vulgar Latin *bacculare, from Latin baculum (“rod, staff used for support”), from Proto-Indo-European *bak-.
Also attested in Old French desbacler (“to clear a harbour by getting ships unloaded to make room for incoming ships with lading”) and in Occitan baclar (“to close”).
The hypothesised derivation from Middle Dutch *bakkelen (“to freeze artificially, lock in place”), a frequentative of bakken (“to stick, stick hard, glue together”) no longer seems likely due to the lack of attestation of *bakkelen in Middle Dutch and by it having the limited meaning of "freeze superficially" in Dutch.
Scrabble Score: 12
debacle: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Worddebacle: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
debacle: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary