Definitions
Wiktionary
- n. slang A chaotic situation where everything seems to go wrong. It is often caused by incompetence, communication failure, or a complex environment.
- v. To fuck (something) up, to make a total mess of.
Etymologies
- Reportedly coined in the 1960s by hippie poet Ed Sanders as Mongolian clusterfuck. (Wiktionary)
Examples
““Maybe you can explain why this $10 Trillion clusterfuck is superior to my proposal [The government could have set up new National Banks with clean balance sheets and invested money in real businesses to keep the economy going].””
“But keep your eye on the bouncing ball, folks, because part of what defines a clusterfuck is the momentary appearance that sanity has taken hold, which is exactly what happened here.”
“This undeniable "clusterfuck" (there's no other way to call this) is indeed a game-changer.”
Source: McCain, GOP Significantly Expanding Advertising Map Into New States
“J.K. Simmons plays an unnamed senior intelligence officer who receives periodic reports on the progress of this "clusterfuck," while his agents watch closely but never intercede, letting the mess escalate out of control and never getting a real handle on what's going on.”
“You can play an oppositional game against a fusionist conservatism, framed in terms of “saving” or “eviscerating” the programs as they now exist, or you can use the breathing room that you’d get on this front from bringing libertarians on board to avert a long-term clusterfuck, seizing the opportunity to begin reforms without worrying about conceding problems that could bee used against the very existence of those programs.”
Revenge of the Son of the Bride of Liberaltarianism: The Return
“As with the vast majority of bands who take the major label plunge, Bondy and his cohorts found themselves awash in the kind of clusterfuck schematics that hasten the end of a band's career even as said band begins to confidently assert its sound.”
“The term "clusterfuck" was invented to literally describe what happens in these cases.”
“It's an approach artist shaman Marcus Coates is trying with the Middle East peace process, so why not apply it to the "clusterfuck" that is the parlous state of Elephant and Castle?”
“If y’all can’t unite when you’re being crushingly oppressed by a hostile force, then what kind of clusterfuck will the world become if these politically incompetent people actually get power?”
“clusterfuck": Guided by Stallone both in front of and behind the camera, a gang of mercenaries heads off to South America to take down a ruthless dictator.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘clusterfuck’.
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WF - nominal compounds (figurative)
An extensive list I have been working on for quite some time. Feel free to add more of the kind if you miss any.
brainstorming, upside, downside, goldplating, bikeshedding, mudslinging, downgrading, headhunter, streamlining, mainstreaming, gerrymandering, frontloading and 503 more...
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Situation Normal
inspired by Mistakes Were Made. Words for things going wrong in a manner particularly violent, stupid, soul-crushing, boggling, grandiose, or any combination of these qualities.
writeoff, wreck, bust, washout, turkey, untergang, undoing, total loss, flop, muck up, louse-up, goof-up and 156 more...
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select words
luminous, radiant, malicious, zeal, ojalá, voluptuary, rubbish, purlicue, consarnit, upstart, precis, robinsonade and 66 more...
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Words I Don't Get to Use Enough
meretricious, languorous, inartful, caesura, truculent, hipsteratti, hiccius doccius, replevined, impudent, sessile, katabasis, pawl and 11 more...
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That Could Have Gone Better
dud, flop, fiasco, debacle, failure, learning experience, wash, doa, epic fail, bomb, crash and burn, bungle and 41 more...
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Kalli's Words
redundant, munchkin, escapade, natch, boom, fap, geek, nocturnal, pedantic, tactile, conversant, oxymoron and 188 more...
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Words For Novel
viridity, effigy, paragon, congested, acrid, lilting, clandestine, plethora, accolade, sardonic, naïve, reckoning and 285 more...
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Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
thunderfuck, incredible, merp, sara, flopparoo, smother, fugly, buer, plum, canny, nefelibata, cuntbucket and 1972 more... -
Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 2369 more... -
SoSheShall's list
slurp, coeur, slurple, glop, perp, fluarxx, ropechno, herrherr, burrduhherrherr, sloppy, cheezie balls, eccentric and 634 more...
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spicolli's Words
terrapin, ravenous, fuck, sepulchral, garlic, suss, queer, curmudgeon, foodie, intricate, omphalos, subversion and 534 more...
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chairmanK's list
eristic, eidetic, reticular, legshow, phytomorphic, ophidian, autumnal, frisson, rhizomatic, pulchritude, lubricious, veridical and 110 more...
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The Collection
A somewhat discriminatory list of words and phrases collected for their euphonic or arcane appeal, interesting etymology, or concise definition of an otherwise unnamed phenomenon or concept.
ziggurat, neophilia, sucker punch, soporific, epoch, tundra, fiat, idiotproof, miscellany, metaphysics, cryptozoology, dysphoria and 850 more...
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Umbersorrow
Intangible, anthropic.
States of being are listed on oofy.njiju, glark, deplore, afterlithe, tagmass, spuriosity, forkful, chelation, oding, ploat, botnet, quedeship and 477 more...
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EN - funny (single) words
"Fornication" is not equal to "formication".
Words with funny meaning, spelling or both.biffy, bibcock, barratry, bastinado, bezonian, bibliobibuli, bodewash, boeotian, boondoggle, borborygmic, bosky, brobdingnagian and 729 more...
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hannah's Words
perpetuity, portmanteau, scintillate, elucidate, surreptitious, reticulate, cavilling, laudatory, milquetoast, inimitable, schadenfreude, ancillary and 212 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for clusterfuck.

splattical An orgy verging on bloodbath. Jun 8, 2009
nuxiy "Art today is just one big clusterfuck of artists doing what will get them paid, what will get them laid or what will get them famous." Jun 2, 2009
reesetee Chained_bear! You're back! Where the heck have you been, Wordie? :-) Jun 5, 2007
chained_bear I use this to describe a certain project we'll be working on for the next two years. Only in front of certain colleagues though.
There are some times when simply no other word will do. Jun 5, 2007
reesetee I sometimes use this word to describe meetings at my office. ;-) Jun 2, 2007
samoritan I've seen this word used as a synonym for the war in Iraq. Jun 1, 2007