Origin and history of fiasco

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 faire fiasco "turn out a failure" (19c.), from Italian far fiasco "suffer a complete breakdown in performance," literally "make a bottle," from fiasco (plural fiaschi) "bottle," from Late Latin flasco "bottle" (see flask).

The 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 (1989) 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.

According to Italian dictionaries, fare il fiasco once meant "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."

FARE IL FIASCO is commonly said in Florence to play a bottle of wine at three sevens. Other expressions are made with this word, such as: To redden a bottle, to make it red, by filling it with wine; To dry a bottle (a bottle and similar) to drink all the wine it contains: To drip a bottle, To be at the end of the bottle, etc. To fiasco is a popular term for someone who fails in an undertaking, a dramatic work, or music that the public does not like, and is booed; and Fiascaccio for a bad outcome. [translated from Stefano Palma, Vocabolario Metodico-Italiano, Milan, 1870, who concludes the entry with Come e' entri qui il nostro fiasco, indovinalo grillo.]