What is "fizzle"

fizzle \fiz"zle\ (f[i^]z"z'l), v. i. [imp. & p. p. fizzled (f[i^]z"z'ld); p. pr. & vb. n. fizzling (f[i^]z"zl[i^]ng).]

1. To make a hissing sound.

   It is the easiest thing, sir, to be done, As plain as fizzling.
   --B. Jonson.

2. To make a ridiculous failure in an undertaking, especially after a good start; to achieve nothing. [Colloq. or Low]

   A four-day rally in stocks fizzled yesterday amid renewed fears that strong economic growth may prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.
   --Sharon R. King (N. Y. Times, May 6, 1998).

   To fizzle out, to burn with a hissing noise and then go out, like wet gunpowder; hence: to fail completely and ridiculously; to prove a failure. [Colloq.]

fizzle \fiz"zle\, n. A failure or abortive effort; a fiasco. [Colloq.]

1530s, "to break wind without noise," probably altered from obsolete fist, from Middle English fisten "break wind" (see feisty) + frequentative suffix -le. Related: Fizzled; fizzling.\n

\nMeaning "make a noise as of a liquid or gas forced out a narrow aperture" is from 1859, "usually with special reference to the weakness and sudden diminution or cessation of such sound" [Century Dictionary], hence the figurative sense "prove a failure, stop abruptly after a more-or-less brilliant start." But this sense is earlier and dates to at least 1847 in American English college slang, along with the noun sense of "failure, fiasco" (1846), also originally U.S. college slang, "a failure in answering an examination by a professor." Barnhart says it is "not considered as derived from the verb." Halliwell ("Archaic and Provincial Words," 1846) has fizzle (v.) as "To do anything without noise," which might connect the college slang with the older word via some notion of mumbled and stifled performance:\n\nIn many colleges in the United States, this word is applied to a bad recitation, probably from the want of distinct articulation, which usually attends such performances. It is further explained in the Yale Banger, November 10, 1846: "This figure of a wounded snake is intended to represent what in technical language is termed a fizzle. The best judges have decided that to get just one third of the meaning right constitutes a perfect fizzle."

[John Bartlett, "A Collection of College Words and Customs," Cambridge, 1851]

n. 1 A spluttering or hissing sound. 2 Failure of a nuclear bomb to meet its expected yield during testing. vb. 1 To sputter or hiss. 2 (context figuratively English) To decay or die off to nothing; to burn out; to end less successfully than previously hoped.

v. end weakly; "The music just petered out--there was no proper ending" [syn: taper off, peter out, fizzle out]

Fizzle may refer to:

• Fizzle (nuclear test), a nuclear weapons term
• Luke's Fireworks Fizzle, a 1916 short comedy film
• Fizzle Promotions, a Music promoters
• Battle of Fort Fizzle, an American Civil War
• Fizzle Like A Flood, a moniker Doug Kabourek
• Fizzles, a short stories by Samuel Beckett
• Fizzle (Transformers), a fictional character, member of the Sparkabots

In nuclear weapons, a fizzle occurs when the testing of a nuclear bomb grossly fails to meet its expected yield. The reason(s) for the failure can be linked to improper bomb design, poor construction, or lack of expertise. All countries that have had a nuclear weapons testing program have experienced some fizzles. A fizzle can spread radioactive material throughout the surrounding area, involve a partial fission reaction of the fissile material, or both. For practical purposes, a fizzle can still have considerable explosive yield when compared to conventional weapons.

In multistage fission-fusion weapons, full yield of the fission primary that fails to initiate fusion ignition in the fusion secondary is also considered a "fizzle", as the weapon failed to reach its design yield despite the fission primary working correctly. Such fizzles can have very high yields, as in the case of Castle Koon, where a device with a 1 megaton design yield underwent a fusion fizzle, but its primary still generated a yield of 110 kilotons.