debacle

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   An event or enterprise that ends suddenly and disastrously, often with humiliating consequences.

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

Simplified etymology

Debacle was adopted from French into English in the early 19th century. The source connects the French word with bacillus. It literally means “an unbarring” and was first used of the breaking of ice or another blockage in a river and its effects, before being transferred to human behavior.

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 artificia...

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