Tailspin

Definitions

1. The rapid, uncontrollable descent of an aircraft in a steep spiral.
2. A severe mental or emotional collapse; emotional breakdown.
   figuratively
3. Any sharp, sustained, often uncontrollable descent or decline.
   figuratively

Equivalents

Examples

“The loss of the third engine threw the plane into a tailspin.”

“Just hours after leaving the institution, she suffered another tailspin.”

“The present⟳ stock⟳ tailspin proves bankruptcy is imminent.”

“But I was reading a statement that either you made or was part of your movie, “An Inconvenient Truth”, and it said we have⟳ just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send⟳ our entire planet into a tailspin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have⟳ ever experienced.”

“St. Louis, the fourth-largest U.S. city in 1900, is fading fast […] . Jobs, and airline, an educated population—all gone or in a tailspin.”

CEFR level