Phrase thesaurus

Failure Phrases

62 phrases and expressions related to "failure".

Phrases

  • A bad quarter of an hour
  • All washed up (failed)
  • Also ran
  • Back the wrong horse
  • Back to the drawing board
  • Bad loser
  • Belly flop
  • Born loser
  • Brown out (partial loss of electricity)
  • Cold Turkey (John Lennon song)
  • Cold turkey
  • Couldn't organize a pissup in a brewery
  • Crushing defeat
  • Damp squib
  • Dead duck
  • Dead in the water
  • Dead loss
  • Death of a Salesman (play by Arthur Miller)
  • Design flaw
  • Down and out
  • Dying on your arse
  • Economic downturn
  • Failure to launch
  • Glaring mistake
  • Go down in flames
  • Graceful loser
  • He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches (George Bernard Shaw quotation)
  • Hero to zero
  • Hot mess
  • I'm A Loser (The Beatles song)
  • Jerk off
  • Kiss of death
  • Knock back
  • Lame duck
  • Let the side down
  • Miserable specimen
  • Nice guys finish last
  • On your knees
  • Out of the running
  • Piss poor
  • Quit while you're ahead
  • Second best
  • Second class
  • Sore loser
  • Success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan
  • Sunset industry
  • Talk turkey
  • Texas turkey
  • That's blown it
  • The Blue Mosque (tourist attraction in Turkey)
  • The Sick Man of Europe (Nickname of Turkey)
  • The biggest loser
  • The bottom fell out of the market
  • The last turkey in the shop
  • The wheels have come off
  • The winner takes it all, the loser standing small (ABBA lyric)
  • Turkey shoot
  • Wash out
  • Went down like a lead balloon
  • What we have here is a failure to communicate (line from Cool Hand Luke)
  • White elephant
  • You couldn't catch a monkey with a shotgun and a sack