Alternative spellings

• débâcle
• debâcle
• débacle

Etymology

Noun

1. An event or enterprise that ends suddenly and disastrously, often with humiliating consequences.
   • 1952, Maimonides, translated by Boaz Cohen, Epistle to Yemen page 5,

     The event proved to be a great debacle for the partisans of this prognosticator.

   • 1996, Richard L. Canby, "SOF: An Alternative Perspective on Doctrine", in Schultz et al (eds), Roles And Missions of SOF In The Aftermath Of The Cold War, p. 188,

     The result is a military approach which maximizes political tensions with Russia and lays the ground for a military debacle.

   • 2002, Jacqueline West, South America, Central America and the Carribean 2002, Routledge, ISBN 1-857431-21-9, page 68,

     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.

   • 2007, BP pipeline failure: hearing before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, "Statement by Peter Van Tuyn", p. 46,

     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.

2. A breaking up of a natural dam, usually made of ice, by a river and the ensuing rush of water.
   • 1836, Henry De La Beche, How to Observe: Geology, p. 69

     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,

   • 1837, John Lee Comstock, Outlines of Geology, p. 51

     For several months after the debacle just described, the river Dranse, having no settled channel, shifted its position continually

   • 1872, Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, p. 425,

     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

Usage notes

• Although authorities say that the word is properly spelled with both accents their use tends to be variable, with either or both often dropped, particularly in non-technical writing. Its headword in the online Oxford English Dictionary has none.