Debacle vs Chaos - What's the difference?
debacle | chaos |
An event or enterprise that ends suddenly and disastrously, often with humiliating consequences.
* 1952 , ,
* 1996 , Richard L. Canby, "SOF: An Alternative Perspective on Doctrine", in Schultz et al'' (eds), ''Roles And Missions of SOF In The Aftermath Of The Cold War ,
* 2002, Jacqueline West, South America, Central America and the Carribean 2002 , Routledge, ISBN 1-857431-21-9, page 68,
* 2007 , BP pipeline failure: hearing before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources , "Statement by Peter Van Tuyn",
(ecology) A breaking up of a natural dam, usually made of ice, by a river and the ensuing rush of water.
* 1836 , , How to Observe: Geology ,
* 1837 , John Lee Comstock, Outlines of Geology ,
* 1872, Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution'',
(obsolete) A vast chasm or abyss.
The unordered state of matter in classical accounts of cosmogony
Any state of disorder, any confused or amorphous mixture or conglomeration.
*
(obsolete, rare) A given medium; a space in which something exists or lives; an environment.
*, II.ii.3:
(mathematics) Behaviour of iterative non-linear systems in which arbitrarily small variations in initial conditions become magnified over time.
(fantasy) One of the two metaphysical forces of the world in some fantasy settings, as opposed to law.
As a verb debacle
is .As a noun chaos is
.debacle
English
Alternative forms
* * (rare) * (rare)Noun
(en noun)- The event proved to be a great debacle for the partisans of this prognosticator.
p. 188,
- The result is a military approach which maximizes political tensions with Russia and lays the ground for a military debacle .
- The Falklands-Malvinas débâcle provided the opportunity to restructure the military High Command; Alfonsín removed anti-democratic senior officers and replaced them with more co-operative ones.
p. 46,
- The BP Prudhoe Bay debacle [the thus provides but the latest in a long line of reasons why leasing this region of the NPR-A is a bad idea.
p. 69
p. 51
- For several months after the debacle just described, the river Dranse, having no settled channel, shifted its position continually
p. 425,
- When this débâcle commences
Usage notes
* Although authorities say that the word is properly spelled with both accents their use tends to be variable, with either or both often dropped, particularly in non-technical writing. Its headword in the online Oxford English Dictionary has none.Synonyms
* (An event or enterprise that ends suddenly and disastrously) fiascoReferences
* 2005, Ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson, The Oxford Dictionary of English (2nd edition revised) , Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-861057-2 * 1998, The Dorling Kindersley Illustrated Oxford Dictionary'', Dorling Kindersley Limited and Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-7513-1110-3, page 211 * 2006, Ed. Michael Allaby, A Dictionary of Ecology , Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-860905-1 * 1999, Ed. Robert Allen, Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage , Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-860947-7 * 1999, Ed. Jennifer Speake, The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English , Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-425-16995-2chaos
English
Noun
(en-noun)- What is the centre of the earth? is it pure element only, as Aristotle decrees, inhabited (as Paracelsus thinks) with creatures whose chaos is the earth: or with fairies, as the woods and waters (according to him) are with nymphs, or as the air with spirits?
