Definitions

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

  • noun A chaotic or confused situation.
  • adjective In a state of confusion or chaos.
  • transitive verb To make confused or chaotic.

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

  • initialism Alternative spelling of SNAFU.

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

  • adjective snarled or stalled in complete confusion
  • verb cause to be in a state of complete confusion
  • noun an acronym often used by soldiers in World War II: situation normal all fucked up

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[s(ituation) n(ormal) a(ll) f(ucked) u(p).]

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Examples

Comments

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  • Situation Normal, All F***ed Up. Beyond snafu is fubar. :-)

    December 10, 2006

  • I hate this word so much.

    April 5, 2007

  • Also the name of an Intellivision game.

    March 2, 2009

  • Also the name of a bar in New York City.

    March 25, 2009

  • Ben & Jerry's flavor, actually named "S.N.A.F.U." (with periods)--it stood for "Strawberries Naturally All Fudged Up." A retired flavor. :-)

    August 27, 2009

  • @CarlosG From 1942 to 45, there was a cartoon reel which had a character named 'Private Snafu'.

    http://tiahblog.blogspot.ca/2011_03_01_archive.html

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Snafu

    The first episode had

    Situation

    Normal

    All

    ... pause...

    Fouled

    Up

    animated in the title. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3fK5SdmJn0

    May 12, 2013