clusterfuck
UK/ˈklʌs.təˌfʌk/US/ˈklʌs.tɚˌfʌk/
clusterfuck noun: a chaotic situation where everything seems to go wrong, often caused by communication failure, a complex environment, or incompetence.
Noun
clusterfuck (plural clusterfucks)
- A chaotic situation where everything seems to go wrong, often caused by communication failure, a complex environment, or incompetence.
- [Colonel Meyers:] That's for sure. What's your assessment of this exercise? [Highway:] It's a cluster fuck.1986, Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge, IMDB tt0091187
- 1989: P. J. O'Rourke, Holidays in Hell
"Mongolian Cluster Fuck" is the technical term journalists use for a preplanned, wholly scripted, news-free event.
- Synonyms:
- CF, Charlie Foxtrot, cluster, clusterball, clusterbumble, fustercluck
- A sexual orgy.
Verb
clusterfuck (third-person singular simple present clusterfucks, present participle clusterfucking, simple past and past participle clusterfucked)
- To fuck (something) up, to make a total mess of.
- Synonyms:
- CF, cluster, clusterball, fustercluck
Examples of clusterfuck in a sentence
- A simple sweep-and-clear turned into a total clusterfuck: T-Bird, trying to explain to Eric how the situation escalated on Devil's Night […]1994, James O'Barr, Alex Proyas, The Crow:
- Please note also my request that henceforth I wish to be reminded of the possibility of a clusterfuck in any contingency plan or operations proposal […]1995, John Barnes, Mother of Storms:
- […] and you will still only begin to get a sense of the constitutionally mandated clusterfuck that is the modern presidency.2004, Jon Stewart, America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide To Democracy Inaction:
- It was a clusterfuck, a deadly clusterfuck.2005, Charles W. Sasser, Patton's Panthers: The African-American 761st Tank Battalion in World War II:
Synonyms of clusterfuck
- CF
- Charlie Foxtrot
- cluster
- clusterball
- clusterbumble
- fustercluck
- car crash
- comedy of errors
- debacle
- dumpster fire
11 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of clusterfuck
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | clusterfucks |
| alternative form | cluster fuck |
| alternative form | cluster-fuck |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | clusterfucks |
| present participle | clusterfucking |
| past participle | clusterfucked |
| past | clusterfucked |
Origin of clusterfuck
From cluster + fuck. Reportedly coined by Hippie poet Ed Sanders as Mongolian Cluster Fuck. First attested in c. 1965 in East Village Other.
Words formed from clusterfuck
Questions about clusterfuck
- What does clusterfuck mean?
- Clusterfuck means a chaotic situation where everything seems to go wrong, often caused by communication failure, a complex environment, or incompetence.
- How do you use clusterfuck in a sentence?
- A simple sweep-and-clear turned into a total clusterfuck: T-Bird, trying to explain to Eric how the situation escalated on Devil's Night […]
- What part of speech is clusterfuck?
- Clusterfuck can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce clusterfuck?
- Clusterfuck is pronounced /ˈklʌs.təˌfʌk/ (UK).
- What is the plural of clusterfuck?
- The plural of clusterfuck is clusterfucks.
Words near clusterfuck in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: clusterfuck (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-clusterfuck.ogg.
Cite this entry: “clusterfuck.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clusterfuck. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.