What is "fiasco"

Fiasco \Fi*as"co\, n.; pl. Fiascoes. [It.] A complete or ridiculous failure, esp. of a musical performance, or of any pretentious undertaking.

1855, theater slang for "a failure in performance;" by 1862 it had acquired the general sense of "any ignominious failure or dismal flop," on or off the stage. It comes via the French phrase fiare fiasco "turn out a failure" (19c.), from Italian far fiasco "suffer a complete breakdown in performance," literally "make a bottle," from fiasco "bottle," from Late Latin flasco "bottle" (see flask).\n

\nThe literal sense of the image (if it is one) is obscure today, but "the usual range of fanciful theories has been advanced" [Ayto]. Century Dictionary says "perhaps in allusion to the bursting of a bottle," Weekley pronounces it impenetrable and compares French ramasser un pelle "to come a cropper (in bicycling), literally to pick up a shovel." OED keeps its distance and lets nameless "Italian etymologists" make nebulous reference to "alleged incidents in Italian theatrical history." Klein suggests Venetian glass-crafters tossing aside imperfect pieces to be made later into common flasks. But according to an Italian dictionary, fare il fiasco used to mean "to play a game so that the one that loses will pay the fiasco," in other words, he will buy the next bottle (of wine). If the dates are not objectionable, that plausibly connects the literal sense of the word with the notion of "a costly mistake."

n. 1 A ludicrous or humiliating situation. Some effort that went quite wrong. 2 A wine bottle in a (usually straw) jacket.

1. n. a sudden and violent collapse [syn: debacle]

2. [also: fiascoes (pl)]

Fiasco is a science fiction novel by Polish author Stanisław Lem, first published in a German translation in 1986. The book, published in Poland the following year, is a further elaboration of Lem's skepticism: in Lem's opinion, the difficulty in communication with alien civilizations is cultural, rather than spatial, distance. The failure to communicate with an alien civilization is the main theme of the book. It was translated into English by Michael Kandel (1988), and was nominated for Arthur C. Clarke Award.

The novel was written on order from publisher S. Fischer Verlag around the time Lem was emigrating from Poland due to the introduction of martial law. Lem stated that this was the only occasion he wrote something upon publisher's request, accepting an advance for a nonexistent novel.

Fiasco may refer to:

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (2006) is a book by Washington Post Pentagon correspondent Thomas E. Ricks. Fiasco deals with the history of the Iraq War from the planning phase to combat operations to 2006 and argues that the war was badly planned and executed. Ricks based the book in part on interviews with military personnel involved in the planning and execution of the war. In 2009, Ricks published a sequel The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008. Fiasco was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.

A fiasco is a typical Italian style of bottle, usually with a round body and bottom, partially or completely covered with a close-fitting straw basket.

The basket is typically made of sala, a swamp weed, sun-dried and blanched with sulfur. The basket provides protection during transportation and handling, and also a flat base for the container. Thus the glass bottle can have a round bottom, which is much simpler to make by glass blowing.

Fiaschi can be efficiently packed for transport, with the necks of upturned bottles safely tucked into the spaces between the baskets of upright ones.

Fiasco was a Brooklyn-based trio formed in October 2005 by Jonathan Edelstein ( guitar/ vocals), Julian Bennett Holmes ( drums), and Lucian Buscemi ( electric bass/vocals), although all three are multi-instrumentalists. They were known for their intense, high-energy music, their energetic live shows, and for playing off the venue's stage, in the round. They drew influences from early 1980s hardcore punk bands such as Minor Threat, Flipper and Bad Brains, as well as more recent noise and indie rock bands such as Lightning Bolt, Fugazi, and Shellac, and math rock bands including Hella and Don Caballero.

Fiasco is a role-playing game by Jason Morningstar, independently published by Bully Pulpit Games. It is a GM-less game for 3–5 players, designed to be played in a few hours with six-sided dice and no preparation. It is billed as "A game of powerful ambition and poor impulse control" and "inspired by cinematic tales of small time capers gone disastrously wrong—films like Blood Simple, Fargo, The Way of the Gun, Burn After Reading, and A Simple Plan."

Fiasco was the winner of the eleventh Diana Jones Award and has been one of the featured games on Tabletop.