FreeScrabbleDictionary

debacle

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
12
Words With Friends
15
Letters
7
Pronunciation
/deɪˈbɑː.kəl/ (UK)
See all 5 pronunciations
/deɪˈbɑː.kəl/ (UK) · /dɛˈbɑː.kəl/ (UK) · /dɪˈbɑ.kəl/ (US) · /dəˈbɑ.kəl/ (US) · /deɪˈbɑ.kəl/ (US)

Definition of debacle

2 senses · 1 part of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. (figuratively)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.”
    “The result is a military approach which maximizes political tensions with Russia […] and lays the ground for a military debacle.”
    “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.”
See all 2 definitions

noun

  1. (figuratively)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.”
    “The result is a military approach which maximizes political tensions with Russia […] and lays the ground for a military debacle.”
    “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.”
  2. A breaking up of a natural dam, usually made of ice, by a river and the ensuing rush of water.
    “[…] 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, […]”
    “For several months after the debacle just described, the river Dranse, having no settled channel, shifted its position continually […]”
    “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 […]”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

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…

See full etymology

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.

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5-letter words

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2-letter words

11 words

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