fiasco

English

WOTD – 9 November 2007    

Wikipedia

Etymology

From Italian fiasco (“bottle, flask”), from Late Latin flasca, flascō "bottle, container", from Frankish flaska "bottle, flask" from Proto-Germanic *flaskǭ (“bottle”); see flask. "Failure" sense comes through French (faire fiasco) from Italian theatrical slang far fiasco (literally, "to make a bottle"), of unknown origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /fɪˈæs.kəʊ/, X-SAMPA: /fI"{s.k@U/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

A fiasco of Chianti

fiasco (plural fiascos, fiascoes)

1. A ludicrous or humiliating failure. Some effort that went quite wrong.
2. A wine bottle in a (usually straw) jacket.

Synonyms

• debacle

Translations

failure

• Bulgarian: фиаско (bg) (fiasko) m
• Catalan: fiasco (ca) m
• Czech: fiasko (cs) n
• Danish: fiasko (da) c
• Esperanto: fiasko (eo)
• Finnish: fiasko (fi)
• French: fiasco (fr) m
• German: Fiasko (de) n
• Greek: φιάσκο (el) (fiásko) n
• Hungarian: fiaskó (hu)
• Italian: fiasco (it) m
• Japanese: わや (ja) (Waya)
• Macedonian: fijasko (mk) (fijasko) m

• Norwegian: fiasko (no) m
• Polish: fiasko (pl) n, klęska (pl) f
• Russian: фиаско (ru) (fiásko) n (indeclinable)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: фијаско (sh) m

  Roman: fijasko (sh) m

• Slovak: fiasko (sk) m
• Slovene: fiasko (sl) m
• Spanish: fiasco (es) m, fracaso (es) m
• Swedish: fiasko (sv) n, (colloquially) pannkaka (sv) c
• Turkish: fiyasko (tr)
• Ukrainian: фиаско (uk) (fyasko) m

See also

• fiasci (hypercorrect plural)
• fiaschi (Italianate plural; often considered pedantic)

References

• Concise Oxford Dictionary, s. v. fiasco.
• Compact Oxford English Dictionary on-line.
• The Word Detective, Issue of Oct 30, 2001.

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Catalan

Pronunciation

• IPA: /fiˈasku/, X-SAMPA: /fi"asku/

Noun

fiasco m (plural fiascos)

1. fiasco

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French

Noun

fiasco m (plural fiascos)

1. fiasco

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Italian

Etymology

From Late Latin flasco, flasca (“bottle, container”), from Old Frankish *flaska (“bottle, flask”), from Proto-Germanic *flaskǭ (“bottle”), from Proto-Germanic *flehtaną (“to plait”), from Proto-Indo-European *plek- (“to weave, braid”). Akin to Old High German flasca (“flask”), Old English flasce, flaxe (“bottle”). More at flask.

Pronunciation

• audio

  (file)

Noun

fiasco m (plural fiaschi)

1. flask
2. fiasco

Related terms

• fiasca
• fiaschetteria

Anagrams

• fascio, fasciò
• sfocai
• sfocia