Fiasco
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses, see Fiasco (disambiguation).
A fiasco means multifaceted, extravagant and sad failures in pursuit of an end that at least some had previously regarded as a chimera syn: fanasco
In ordinary American usage, a "fiasco" is some effort that went wrong. In hindsight, it would appear to have been foolishly undertaken or executed.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary gives fiascos as the plural, although fiascoes is also seen, especially in the United States.
The word is an Italian word meaning a "flask" or the type of round wine bottle, sometimes wrapped in straw, used traditionally for Chianti wine.
The Concise Oxford notes that the allusion is unexplained, but various possibilities have been suggested. The more modern Compact Oxford Dictionary states that the word is borrowed from an Italian phrase far fiasco, literally "to make a bottle", figuratively "to fail [in a performance]". This is similar to the informal British English usage of "to bottle out" meaning to "lose one's nerve".
An alternative interpretation of the Italian "far fiasco" as a meaning for failure can be traced to production of glass bottles by glass blowing. A mistake in the process would result in a bottle of irregular shape with protuding or enlarged base which in Italian is termed "fiasco" as opposed to "bottiglia" (bottle)
