Etymology

clusterfuck

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Today it means: A chaotic situation where everything seems to go wrong, often caused by communication failure, a complex environment, or incompetence. Full definition →

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The story

From cluster + fuck. Reportedly coined by Hippie poet Ed Sanders as Mongolian Cluster Fuck. First attested in c. 1965 in East Village Other.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.