Margaret Atwood
-ˈa-
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English speakers picked up fiasco from the French, who in turn adopted it from the Italian phrase fare fiasco—literally, "to make a bottle." Just what prompted the development of the meaning "failure" from "bottle" has remained obscure. One guess is that when a Venetian glassblower would discover a flaw developing in a beautiful piece they were working on, they would turn it into an ordinary bottle to avoid having to destroy the object. The bottle would naturally represent a failure to the glassblower, whose would-be work of art was downgraded to everyday glassware. This theory, however, remains unsubstantiated.
Examples of fiasco in a Sentence
Christian Browne, New York Daily News, 26 Mar. 2026
Saturday’s fiasco also gained traction on the social media platform Reddit.
—Madeline King, Chicago Tribune, 16 Mar. 2026
Others point to a budget fiasco roughly a decade ago in Kansas in which legislators enacted a series of tax cuts that were ultimately rolled back.
—Jack Harvel, Kansas City Star, 12 Mar. 2026
Some argue Vladimir Putin was emboldened by the fiasco in Afghanistan to invade Ukraine.
—Chris Roemer, Baltimore Sun, 12 Mar. 2026
See All Example Sentences for fiasco
Cite this Entry
“Fiasco.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiasco. Accessed 27 Mar. 2026.
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