In Latin, flasco means "bottle," and it entered Italian as fiasco. And fare il fiasco in Italian literally means "make the bottle," and less literally, "to play a game where the loser will buy the next bottle of wine for the players to share."

This (maybe) explains why fare il fiasco entered French as faire fiasco, meaning "to be a failure," and from there into English as just "fiasco," meaning "a failure, especially on stage." But there's plenty of debate among etymologists here; we're really not certain about the history of this word.

The earliest example of "fiasco" that we do know of in English print is from 1824. It's a reviewer complaining about a play, saying how, luckily, one good actor kept the whole thing "from making a total fiasco."

Given how fun "fiasco" is to say, and how exotic and dramatic it sounds, it's no surprise that it became popular in English and remains so today. We call something a fiasco when it's a flop or failure in which things go really wrong in lots of ways, to the point where it seems ridiculous, like a play totally falling apart on stage.

Part of speech:

Noun, the countable kind: "The sound system failed, as did the air conditioning, and thousands of sweaty fans grumped through the whole concert. It was a fiasco."

Other forms: 

For the plural, most English writers use "fiascoes."

If you'd like to use the fancy Italian version instead, it's "fiaschi," pronounced "fee YOSS kee." I recommend doing this only for a laugh, so you don't sound snobby.

how to use it:

When you want to sound dramatic as you describe something that went horribly wrong in multiple ways, especially laughably (at least in hindsight), call it a fiasco.

Most typically, it's a staged performance that gets called a fiasco. But it can be anything: any event, game, date, meal, trip, attempt, experience, or experiment that turns into a fiasco.

examples:

"She pretty much lectured me for about ten minutes, until I realized I had to get back to math. I knew I had to end this fiasco of a conversation."
  — Jordan Sonnenblick, Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, 2004

"I hit the first wrong note and I realized something didn't sound quite right. And then I hit another and another followed that. A chill started at the top of my head and began to trickle down... I assumed my talent-show fiasco meant I never had to play the piano again."
   — Amy Tan, Joy Luck Club, 1986

has this page helped you understand "fiasco"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "fiasco" without saying "disaster" or "failure."

try it out:

Remember back in 2017, the Fyre Festival? That was a fiasco! It was all hyped-up as a luxurious music festival in the Bahamas, except it delivered on zero of its promises. All the musical acts canceled, and that was just the start. Wikipedia sums it up: "Instead of the gourmet meals and luxury villas for which festival attendees had paid hundreds or even thousands of dollars, they received packaged sandwiches and were lodged in poorly furnished tents."

The guy who organized it even went to jail!

With that in mind as an example, talk about your own most recent fiasco, and rate it on a scale from 1 (a couple of missed notes in a piano recital) to 10 (a Fyre Festival).

If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.)

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game for this month is "It's That Thing..."

We'll play with some highly slangy, reasonably wholesome terms, courtesy of Urban Dictionary.

I'll give you three terms, and you attempt to define them. Scroll down to see the correct definitions, and give yourself a point for each term that you defined either correctly or believably.

Try these today:

1. Blobject

2. McDojo

3. Pretendonitis

review this word:

1. One opposite of a FIASCO is

A. a TRIUMPH.
B. a BARGAIN.
C. a FAIR FIGHT.

2. From Roald Dahl's The BFG: "Her hands were now planted firmly on her hips and there was a look on her face which seemed to say, 'I _____ this fiasco.'"

A. engineered
B. want no part of
C. heartily approve of

Answers to the review questions: 1. A 2. B From the game: Remember, even if you're wrong, give yourself a point for coming up with a believable definition! Here are the definitions that Urban Dictionary lists. 1. Blobject: "The bloated state of our [lifestyle and economy in which] humans keep on... piling useless stuff on top of useless stuff." I'm not too clear on this one, y'all, but I think we'll know a blobject when we see one. 2. McDojo: "Martial arts club with no credibility. Black belt in 6 months? Mmmmm that smells like a tasty McDojo." 3. Pretendonitis: "A made-up injury to get out of doing something."

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog: On vocabulary...       36 ways to study words.       Why we forget words, & how to remember them.       How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. On writing...       How to improve any sentence.       How to motivate our kids to write.       How to stop procrastinating and start writing.       How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count. From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.