debacle.

A badly managed or overwhelming failure that ends in disorder or humiliation.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• a military debacle
• a financial debacle
• a public-relations debacle

On the page

The evacuation became a debacle when three agencies issued contradictory orders.

He remembered the wedding not as a quarrel but as a debacle from which no one emerged unscathed.

Usage notes

Primary category: literary. Forms: Singular debacle; plural debacles. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.