damp squib

English

Pronunciation

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Noun

damp squib (plural damp squibs)

1. (literally) A firework that has been wet and therefore fails to go off correctly.
2. (idiomatic, by extension) Anything that doesn’t work properly, or fails to come up to expectations; a dud.
   • 1858 May 29, The Launceston Examiner, Tasmania, page 6, column 2:

     The anonymous oracle, the author of this pamphlet, is an example of entertaining dullness. He has manufactured a very damp squib; he is a serious man in motley; and practical ideas occasionally drop in among his fantastic vaticinations.

   • 1999 June 30, Fiachra Gibbons, quoting John Calder, “Arts and science ‘damp squib’”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     It sounds very token, another damp squib which will probably end up benefiting more bureaucrats than artists or scientists.

   • 2012 December 29, Paul Doyle, “Arsenal's Theo Walcott hits hat-trick in thrilling victory over Newcastle”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     Arsène Wenger confessed: "The result was not an accurate indication of the match." Certainly, at half-time it seemed unlikely that Arsenal would catch fire so spectacularly because the first half was a damp squib of a display from Wenger's team, as Newcastle initially showed no ill-effects from their Old Trafford ordeal.

   • 2012 December 30, Mark O'Connell, “Both Flesh and Not by David Foster Wallace – review”, in The Observer‎^[3], →ISSN:

     A third collection of David Foster Wallace's essays contains genius and damp squibs[.]

   • 2013, Alistair Moffat, Susan Mansfield, Alexander Smith, The Great Tapestry of Scotland: The Making of a Masterpiece:

     That whole campaign was a damp squib, they cranked it up as a real possibility that Scotland might win, and when we actually got there it didn't happen like that, and everybody came home quite early with their tails between their legs.

   • 2017 July 17, Yasmeen Serhan, quoting Guy Verhofstadt, “One Issue That Could Break the Brexit Talks”, in The Atlantic‎^[4]:

     Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit coordinator, took the criticism one step further, dubbing the U.K. proposal a “damp squib” that reduces Europeans to “the status of ‘third-country nationals’ in the U.K., with fewer rights than British citizens are offered throughout the EU.”

   • 2024 April 16, Arwa Mahdawi, “‘How did Kamala Harris go from being a rising star to a damp squib?”, in The Guardian‎^[5]:

     How did Kamala Harris go from being a rising star to a damp squib? [title]

Synonyms

• wet firecracker
• dud

Translations

firework that fails to go off, due to wetting

• Danish: fuser
• Dutch: sisser (nl)
• Finnish: suutari (fi)
• French: pétard mouillé (fr)
• German: Blindgänger (de) m, Versager (de) m
• Irish: urchar iomrallach m

anything that doesn’t work properly

• Finnish: suutari (fi)
• French: pétard mouillé (fr)
• German: Schuss in den Ofen (de) m, Reinfall (de) m, Schlag ins Wasser m, Rohrkrepierer (de) m
• Polish: niewypał (pl) m