fiasci

Noun

fiasco (plural fiascos or fiascoes or fiaschi or (hypercorrect) fiasci)

1. A sudden or unexpected failure.
   • The event turned into a complete fiasco when the power went out.
2. A ludicrous or humiliating situation. Some effort that went quite wrong.
   • There was the fiasco about Olga coming to the tableaux, which was the cause of her sending that very tart reply, via Miss Lyall, to Lady Ambermere's impertinence, and the very next morning, Lady Ambermere, coming again into Riseholme, perhaps for that very purpose, had behaved to Lucia as Lucia had...1920, Edward Frederic Benson, Queen Lucia

   Synonyms:

   debacle

3. A wine bottle in a (usually straw) jacket.
   • I sent for the porter and when he came I told him in Italian to get me a bottle of Cinzano at the wine shop, a fiasco of chianti and the evening papers. He went away and brought them wrapped in newspaper, unwrapped them and, when I asked him to, drew the corks and put the wine and vermouth under...1929 May–October, Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms, 1st British edition, London: Jonathan Cape […], published 1929, →OCLC