fizzle

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• intransitive verb To make a hissing or sputtering sound.
• intransitive verb Informal To fail or end weakly, especially after a hopeful beginning.
• noun A failure.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To make a hissing sound; hiss or sputter, as a liquid or gas forced out of a narrow aperture, or a liquid discharging gas, or a wet combustible, as wood or gunpowder, burning: usually with special reference to the weakness and sudden diminution or cessation of such sound.
• Hence To stop abruptly after a more or less brilliant start; come to a sudden and lame conclusion; fail ignominiously; specifically, in school and college slang, to fail in a recitation or an examination: often with out: as, the undertaking promised well, but it soon fizzled out; nearly the whole class fizzled in calculus.
• To break wind.
• In school and college slang, to examine (a student) with the result of failure on his part: as, the professor fizzled nearly the whole class.
• noun Same as fizz, 2.
• noun A fizzling or fizzing condition; hence, a state of restless agitation; a stew; worry: as, he is in a fizzle about his luggage.
• noun A breaking wind.
• noun A failure or an abortive effort; in particular, in school and college slang, a failure in a recitation or an examination.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun colloq. A failure or abortive effort; a fiasco.
• intransitive verb To make a hissing sound.
• intransitive verb Colloq. or Low To make a ridiculous failure in an undertaking, especially after a good start; to achieve nothing.
• intransitive verb [Colloq.] to fail completely and ridiculously; to prove a failure.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• verb To sputter or hiss.
• verb figuratively To decay or die off to nothing; to burn out; to end less successfully than previously hoped.
• noun A spluttering or hissing sound.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• verb end weakly
• noun a complete failure
• noun a fricative sound (especially as an expression of disapproval)