debacle

American  

[day-, -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

That would be a mess, and probably not a foreign debacle we only read about.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026

And now, despite the debacle Down Under, the Rams remain the favorites to win the Super Bowl this year.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026

Sheeran went on without opening acts, causing the show's start time to be pushed back, after several musicians dropped out over the debacle.

From BBC ● Sep. 20, 2026

The debacle had begun when Moore threw an interception on the very first play from scrimmage.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026

Shin and I met for the first time on the day after that balloon debacle.

From "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West" by Blaine Harden

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

From MarketWatch ● May 26, 2026

Calling such presidential debacles someone’s “Katrina” has been overdone.

From Salon ● Apr. 5, 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 Ben Hecht

Related Words

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