Word.ws English Dictionary

Edsel

Edsel proper noun: a male given name from the Germanic languages, variant of Etzel.

Proper noun

Edsel

  1. A male given name from the Germanic languages, variant of Etzel.
  2. (historical) An automobile marque that was planned, manufactured, and launched with great advertising hype by the Ford Motor Company in September 1957, but was a notorious failure.

Noun

Edsel (plural Edsels)

  1. (US, informal) Any unwanted product or commercial failure, especially one given much publicity.
    • Tom Paris: Harry… I think we built an Edsel.
      Harry Kim: A what?
      Tom Paris: A lemon. A disaster waiting to happen.1998, Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, Joe Menosky, “Timeless”, in Star Trek: Voyager, season 5, episode 6, spoken by Tom Paris
    Synonyms:
    flop, lead balloon, lemon

Synonyms of Edsel

Forms of Edsel

pluralEdsels

Origin of Edsel

The automobile marque is named after Edsel Ford (1893–1943), son of Henry Ford. Compare German Etzel.

Questions about Edsel

What does Edsel mean?
Edsel means a male given name from the Germanic languages, variant of Etzel.
What part of speech is Edsel?
Edsel can be a proper noun or a noun.

Words near Edsel in the dictionary

  1. EDSA II
  2. EDSA III
  3. Edsall
  4. Edsalls
  5. edscottite
  6. Edsel
  7. Edsels
  8. Edser
  9. Edson
  10. Edstrom
  11. Edstroms

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Edsel (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.

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Cite this entry: “Edsel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/edsel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.