Idiom
go down in flames
Meaning
To fail miserably and with long-term consequences.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“His big business idea went down in flames.”
“The project went down in flames after the team missed every deadline and lost their main investor.”
“Despite his ambitious promises to reform the department, his entire strategy went down in flames when the audit revealed massive financial mismanagement.”
Examples
simple
“His big business idea went down in flames.”
contextual
“The project went down in flames after the team missed every deadline and lost their main investor.”
complex
“Despite his ambitious promises to reform the department, his entire strategy went down in flames when the audit revealed massive financial mismanagement.”
Origin
From aerial combat in the World Wars: aircraft shot down would crash burning.
Key words
Related idioms
- Level
- B1 · Intermediate
- Updated