debacle
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\n \n Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 16, 2024 is:\n \n
\n \n\n debacle • \\dee-BAH-kul\\ • noun
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Debacle is usually used synonymously with fiasco to mean \u201ca complete failure.\u201d It can also refer to a great disaster (though typically not one that causes significant suffering or loss).
\n\n// After the debacle of his first novel, he had trouble getting a publisher for his next book.
\n\n// The state has made a great deal of progress in recovering from its economic debacle.
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\u201cEarlier this year, on an Amtrak train from Northern Virginia to Sanford, Florida, passengers repeatedly called the police during the train\u2019s 20-hour delay. \u2018For those of you that are calling the police,\u2019 the conductor had to announce, \u2018we are not holding you hostage.\u2019 That debacle was caused by a freight train ahead of them, which had crashed into an empty car parked on the tracks in rural South Carolina. Nothing you can do about that. A train just has to wait until whatever\u2019s in front of it is gone.\u201d \u2014 Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 21 Nov. 2023
\n \n \n\n Did you know?
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If you need an icebreaker in some social setting, why not recount the history of debacle? After all, when it was first used in English, debacle referred to the literal breaking up of ice (such as the kind that occurs in a river after a long, cold winter), as well as to the rush of ice or water that follows such an event. Eventually, it was also used to mean \u201ca violent, destructive flood.\u201d If that\u2019s not enough to make some fast friends, you could let loose the fact that debacle comes from the French noun d\xe9b\xe2cle, which in turn comes from the verb d\xe9b\xe2cler, meaning \u201cto clear, unbolt, or unbar.\u201d You might then add, to your listeners\u2019 grateful appreciation, that these uses led naturally to such meanings as \u201ca breaking up,\u201d \u201ccollapse,\u201d and finally the familiar \u201cdisaster\u201d and \u201cfiasco.\u201d We can feel the silence thawing already.
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