Fiasco Is Italian for a Bottle
A fiasco is a complete failure. The word means bottle in Italian, and nobody is quite sure how it acquired the other sense.
A fiasco is a complete and humiliating failure. In Italian the word means a flask or bottle, and the theatrical phrase *far fiasco*, to make a bottle, meant to fail on stage. Several explanations circulate, involving glassblowing errors or a comic routine, and none is established — the phrase is older than any of the stories about it.
- A total failure. *The launch was a fiasco.*
- A flask (Italian). *A straw-covered fiasco.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | fiasco | A public fiasco. |
| Plural | fiascos | Repeated fiascos. |
| Related | flask | A metal flask. |
| Related | debacle | A political debacle. |
| Related | farce | A complete farce. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The whole event was a fiasco.Failure.
- A Chianti fiasco has a straw base.The bottle.
- Debacle is a near synonym.From French, meaning a collapse.
Words for failure
- Fiasco — a humiliating public failure
- Debacle — a sudden collapse, from a French word for ice breaking up
- Farce — absurd and ridiculous
- Shambles — originally a slaughterhouse
- Washout — a complete failure, from flooding damage
From Italian *fiasco*, a flask, in the phrase *far fiasco*, to fail. Its route to the failure sense has never been convincingly traced.
Why does bottle mean failure?
The Italian theatrical phrase *far fiasco* meant to fail on stage. The reason for the bottle image is unknown.
Fiasco or debacle?
A fiasco is embarrassing and often absurd. A debacle suggests sudden and total collapse.