debacle

What it means

1. figurativelyAn event or enterprise that ends suddenly and disastrously, often with humiliating consequences.First known use early 19th c.

   The event proved to be a great debacle for the partisans of this prognosticator.

   1952, Boaz Cohen, Epistle to Yemen, translation of original by Maimonides, page 5

   2 more examples

   The result is a military approach which maximizes political tensions with Russia […] and lays the ground for a military debacle.

   1996, Richard L. Canby, “SOF: An Alternative Perspective on Doctrine”, in Schultz et al, editor, Roles And Missions of SOF In The Aftermath Of The Cold War, page 188

   The BP Prudhoe Bay debacle [the Prudhoe Bay oil spill] thus provides but the latest in a long line of reasons why leasing this region of the NPR-A is a bad idea.

   2007, “Statement by Peter Van Tuyn”, in BP pipeline failure: hearing before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, page 46

   Synonyms: fiasco

2. geographyA breaking up of a natural dam, usually made of ice, by a river and the ensuing rush of water.

   For several months after the debacle just described, the river Dranse, having no settled channel, shifted its position continually […]

   1837, John Lee Comstock, Outlines of Geology, page 51

   2 more examples

   […] so that in extreme cases the latter may even be dammed up for a time, and a debacle be the consequence, when the main river overcomes the resistance opposed to it, […]

   1836, Henry De La Beche, How to Observe: Geology, page 69

   When this débâcle commences […], the masses of ice, drifting with the current and unable to pass, are hurled upon those already soldered together; thus an enormous barrier is formed […]

   1872, Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, page 425

In a sentence

The event proved to be a great debacle for the partisans of this prognosticator.

1952, Boaz Cohen, Epistle to Yemen, translation of original by Maimonides, page 5

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*bak-
2. Latinbaculum“rod, staff used for support”
3. Vulgar Latin*bacculare
4. Frenchdébâcle
5. Englishdebacle

From French débâcle, from débâcler (“to unbar; unleash”) from prefix dé- (“un-”) + bâcler (“to dash, bind, bar, block”) [perhaps from unattested Middle French and Old French *bâcler, *bacler (“to hold in place, prop a door or window open”)], from Vulgar Latin *bacculare, from Latin baculum (“rod, staff used for support”), from Proto-Indo-European *bak-. Also attested in Old French desbacler (“to clear a harbour by getting ships unloaded to make room for incoming ships with lading”) and in Occitan baclar (“to close”). The hypothesised derivation from Middle Dutch *bakkelen (“to freeze artificially, lock in place”), a frequentative of bakken (“to stick, stick hard, glue together”) no longer seems likely due to the lack of attestation of *bakkelen in Middle Dutch and by it having the limited meaning of "freeze superficially" in Dutch.

First known use: early 19th c.