The political ____ resulted in the resignation of the entire cabinet.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Had I but known what she intended, I might have forestalled this ____.
Word Origin & History
From French débâcle, from débâcler (“to unbar; unleash”) from prefix dé- (“un-”) + bâcler (“to dash, bind, bar, block”) [perhaps from unattested Middle French and Old French *bâcler, *bacler (“to hold in place, prop a door or window open”)], from Vulgar Latin *bacculare, from Latin baculum (“rod, staff used for support”), from Proto-Indo-European *bak-.
Also attested in Old French desbacler (“to clear a harbour by getting ships unloaded to make room for incoming ships with lading”) and in Occitan baclar (“to close”).
The hypothesised derivation from Middle Dutch *bakkelen (“to freeze artificially, lock in place”), a frequentative of bakken (“to stick, stick hard, glue together”) no longer seems likely due to the lack of attestation of *bakkelen in Middle Dutch and by it having the limited meaning of "freeze superficially" in Dutch.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The event proved to be a great debacle for the partisans of this prognosticator."
— 1952, Boaz Cohen, Epistle to Yemen, translation of original by Maimonides, page 5:
"The result is a military approach which maximizes political tensions with Russia […] and lays the ground for a military debacle."
— 1996, Richard L. Canby, “SOF: An Alternative Perspective on Doctrine”, in Schultz et al, editor, Roles And Missions of SOF In The Aftermath Of The Cold War, page 188:
"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."
— 2007, “Statement by Peter Van Tuyn”, in BP pipeline failure: hearing before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, page 46:
"[…] 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, […]"
— 1836, Henry De La Beche, How to Observe: Geology, page 69:
"For several months after the debacle just described, the river Dranse, having no settled channel, shifted its position continually […]"
— 1837, John Lee Comstock, Outlines of Geology, page 51: