debacle
dih-BOK-ulnounMeaning a sudden and complete failure
Memory hook de-BAKE-le: the bake-off that fell apart. At the big bake-off, Nell’s tower cake wobbles, tilts and crashes onto the judges’ table; the whole entry is a debacle.
The school play was a debacle: the curtain fell, the lights went out and the lead forgot every line.
In context The new phone’s launch was a debacle; the batteries overheated, the stores ran out of chargers, and the company had to take back every phone within a week.
Similar fiasco, disaster, failure, flop
Opposite success, triumph
From French débâcle, the breaking up of ice on a river, from débâcler (to unbolt, to set free).