damp squib

English

Pronunciation

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Noun

damp squib (plural damp squibs)

1. (UK) A firework that fails to go off, due to wetting.
2. (idiomatic, by extension) Anything that doesn’t work properly, or fails to come up to expectations.
   • 2012 December 29, Paul Doyle, “Arsenal's Theo Walcott hits hat-trick in thrilling victory over Newcastle”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     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.

Synonyms

• wet firecracker

Translations

firework that fails to go off, due to wetting

• Danish: fuser
• Dutch: sisser (nl)
• French: pétard mouillé (fr)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• German: Blindgänger (de) m, Versager (de) m
• Irish: urchar iomrallach m

anything that doesn’t work properly

• French: pétard mouillé (fr)
• German: Schuss in den Ofen m, Reinfall (de) m, Schlag ins Wasser m, Rohrkrepierer (de) m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Polish: niewypał (pl) m