variants
also débâcle
1
as in disaster
a sudden violent event that brings about great loss or destruction
the financial debacle that was the stock market crash of 1929
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in loser
something that has failed
the movie, which some had predicted would be a blockbuster, turned out to be the summer's biggest debacle at the multiplexes
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Examples Sentences
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Recent Examples of debacle
This may be the reason for the ongoing Quarter Pounder debacle.
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Yasmin Tayag, The Atlantic, 24 Oct. 2024
There may have been a moment, circa 2020-2022, when replacing a person of color or a woman with a White man may have sparked a public relations debacle.
—Allison Morrow, CNN, 22 Oct. 2024
By another measure, though, Laughlin’s eugenic advocacy was a historic debacle.
—Arthur Caplan, Scientific American, 17 Oct. 2024
As illustrated by the recent debacle with the Shein IPO plan, U.S. politicians are quick to summon up imagined threats to American consumers for any company with significant operations in the PRC.
—Drew Bernstein, Forbes, 15 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for debacle 
Yasmin Tayag, The Atlantic, 24 Oct. 2024
There may have been a moment, circa 2020-2022, when replacing a person of color or a woman with a White man may have sparked a public relations debacle.
—Allison Morrow, CNN, 22 Oct. 2024
By another measure, though, Laughlin’s eugenic advocacy was a historic debacle.
—Arthur Caplan, Scientific American, 17 Oct. 2024
As illustrated by the recent debacle with the Shein IPO plan, U.S. politicians are quick to summon up imagined threats to American consumers for any company with significant operations in the PRC.
—Drew Bernstein, Forbes, 15 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for debacle
Recent Examples of Synonyms for debacle
Noun
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Regional authorities have been heavily criticized for having issued alerts to mobile phones some two hours after the disaster had started.Hernán Muñoz and Joseph Wilson, Los Angeles Times, 5 Nov. 2024
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The rule could prevent a disaster like the one that happened with Synapse, where thousands of consumers lost access to their funds.Jeff Kauflin, Forbes, 5 Nov. 2024
Noun
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The presidential victor will be showered in praise while the loser will be excoriated — no matter how close the election turns out to be.Alexis Simendinger, The Hill, 5 Nov. 2024
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Details: Each county then designates a recount board made up of three members: one chosen by the apparent winner, one by the apparent loser and a third person agreed upon by both.Linh Ta, Axios, 4 Nov. 2024
Noun
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The other factor is the failure of the Biden administration to put an end to the Israeli wars that caused the deaths of more than 43,000 Palestinians by continuing supplies of weapons.Letters To The Editor, The Mercury News, 8 Nov. 2024
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Characteristically, once she was married, Stewart tackled every ambition with ferocious discipline and took each failure as a personal crisis.Constance Grady, Vox, 4 Nov. 2024
Noun
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That tragedy impacts the family deeply, especially her brother Joe, who last saw her.Lizz Schumer, People.com, 5 Nov. 2024
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Because, yes — somehow Peanut’s untimely death has spiraled from a social-media tragedy to a conservative political movement.Kate Lindsay, Vulture, 4 Nov. 2024
Noun
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Over the coming days, the owners of Four Seasons Total Landscaping did their patriotic duty and cashed in on their temporary notoriety, selling souvenirs to commemorate the fiasco; to Trump’s detractors, the debacle epitomized the clownish incompetence that had defined his presidency.Meredith Blake, Los Angeles Times, 3 Nov. 2024
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This gradual adoption of Windows on Arm should be a success story, but the dev kit fiasco has overshadowed it.Tom Warren, The Verge, 18 Oct. 2024
Noun
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Despite certain calamities — like the Great Recession or the tech bubble of the early 2000s — the S&P 500 has turned into a long-term, compounding machine.Bret Kenwell, Forbes, 28 Oct. 2024
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Patrick Crusius worried that Texas — hot and dry and facing climate calamity — was being overrun by immigrants.Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica, 19 Oct. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Debacle.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/debacle. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.
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