Meaning of Debacle | Babel Free

Definitions

1. An event or enterprise that ends suddenly and disastrously, often with humiliating consequences.
   figuratively
2. A breaking up of a natural dam, usually made of ice, by a river and the ensuing rush of water.

Equivalents

Examples

“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.”

“[…] 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 […]”

“The Falklands-Malvinas débâcle provided the opportunity to restructure the military High Command; Alfonsín removed anti-democratic senior officers and replaced them with more co-operative ones.”

CEFR level