debacle

American  

[dey-, -bak-uhl, duh-, dee-bah-kuhl] / deɪ-, -ˈbæk əl, də-, diˈbɑ kəl /

noun

debacles plural

1. a general breakup or dispersion; sudden downfall or rout.

   The revolution ended in a debacle.

2. a complete collapse or failure.

   Synonyms:

   calamity, catastrophe, fiasco, ruin, disaster

3. a breaking up of ice in a river.

4. a violent rush of waters or ice.

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debacle British  

/ deɪˈbɑːkəl, dɪ- /

noun

1. a sudden disastrous collapse or defeat, esp one involving a disorderly retreat; rout

2. the breaking up of ice in a river during spring or summer, often causing flooding

3. a violent rush of water carrying along debris

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• debacles
  plural

Etymology

Origin of debacle

1795–1805; < French débâcle, derivative of débâcler to unbar, clear, equivalent to dé- dis- ¹ + bâcler to bar ≪ Latin baculum stick, rod

Explanation

Use debacle to refer to a fiasco, disaster, or great failure. If several dogs run onto the field during the big baseball game, tripping players and chewing up the bases, you can call the whole event a debacle. Debacle is sometimes used to describe a military defeat. If your army retreats, that's one thing. If your army is outmaneuvered and ends up huddled in a valley, surrounded on all sides by the enemy, forced to sing 90s sitcom theme songs by their savage captors — that's a debacle. Debacle comes from the French débâcler, "to clear," — the prefix des- means "completely, utterly" and the verb bacler means "to block."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

debacle debacles

As Saturday afternoon turned into Saturday night, I felt like I was detoxing from the Friday night debacle back in D.C. — the rescheduled White House correspondents’ dinner.

From Salon ● Jul. 31, 2026

All of which points to a larger lesson still unlearned from the Covid debacle.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026

The official Instagram account for the Belgium national team also appeared to mock the debacle, posting a picture of striker Romelu Lukaku cupping his ear with the caption "overturn this".

From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2026

To their credit, after the debacle, members of the U.S. team didn’t complain about anything being rigged.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026

Of course there was the cellar debacle, but Grandma Star also sends her books about Native history and culture and let slip that Mom used a tribal scholarship for grad school.

From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Perhaps the biggest humiliation — at least until the recent twin debacles of the Freedom 250 implosion and the Kennedy Center ruling — was the Super Bowl halftime show.

From Salon ● Jun. 3, 2026

As the many debacles over inheritances show, it can often get worse as we get older.

From MarketWatch ● May 26, 2026

Spy agencies saw profound implications in the recent debacles, far beyond public humiliation.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025

The debacles “may have repercussions on the financial system more broadly,” warns junk bond guru Marty Fridson, chief executive officer of FridsonVision High Yield Strategy.

From Barron's ● Oct. 23, 2025

So many things have happened to them, so many debacles and monsters and horrors have swept them off their feet … and always they have kept on—persisting through floods, volcanic eruptions, plagues and wars.

From A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago by Hecht, Ben

Related Words

• beating
• breakdown
• collapse
• crash
• defeat
• devastation
• disaster
• downfall
• drubbing
• failure
• fiasco
• reversal
• rout
• wreck