fiasco
/fɪˈæs.kəʊ/noun
A sudden, complete, and often embarrassing failure.
Example sentences
- “The outdoor wedding turned into a fiasco when the storm hit.”
- “The product launch was a fiasco; the website crashed within minutes.”
Borrowed from Italian, where it means 'flask'; how it came to mean failure is uncertain. Slightly informal, and common in headlines about bungled events.