verb phrase🎓 English idiom
go down in flames
to fail spectacularly
What it means
To go down in flames means to fail suddenly, completely, and often dramatically. It's used when a plan, project, performance, or relationship collapses in a spectacular and very public way.
Words like “go down in flames” are exactly the kind of vocabulary our English vocabulary size test measures — find out how many English words you know.
Examples
- His ambitious startup went down in flames within a single year.
- The presentation went down in flames when the technology completely failed.
- Their campaign went down in flames after the scandal broke.
- I studied hard, but the exam still went down in flames for me.
Where it comes from
The phrase comes from aerial combat in the World Wars, where a hit aircraft would literally fall from the sky burning, and was later applied to any dramatic failure.
Related idioms
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