See dumpster fire in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
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"etymology_text": "The figurative sense connotes that things that were already contemptible (as if trash) are now also even worse (as if aflame).",
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"ref": "2015, Michael Cosgrove, Imperfect Passage: A Sailing Story of Vision, Terror, and Redemption:",
"text": "As honeymoons go, this was a total dumpster fire.",
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"ref": "2015 August 28, Kevin Trahan, “The University of Illinois is a dumpster fire”, in insidenu.com, retrieved 27 Oct 2016:",
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"ref": "2016 July 7, Sean Sullivan, Philip Rucker, “Trump, seeking GOP unity, has tense meeting with Senate Republicans”, in Washington Post, retrieved 27 Oct 2016:",
"text": "[W]ith these two candidates, this election remains a dumpster fire.",
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"ref": "2025 March 2, Michael Sainato, quoting Mark Kelly, “Bernie Sanders dismisses Republicans’ ‘horrific’ calls for Zelenskyy to resign”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
"text": "“It was a dumpster fire of diplomacy,” Kelly said.",
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"A chaotic, unpleasant, unmanageable thing, situation, or person; a disaster."
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"(US, slang) A chaotic, unpleasant, unmanageable thing, situation, or person; a disaster."
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"word": "shemozzle"
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"word": "tire fire"
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"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see dumpster, fire."
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"id": "en-dumpster_fire-en-noun-en:literal",
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"word": "hot mess"
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"word": "🗑️🔥"
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{
"ipa": "/ˈdʌmpstəˈfaɪ.ə(ɹ)/",
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{
"ipa": "/ˈdʌmpstəˈfaɪə(ɹ)/",
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"word": "dumpster fire"
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"etymology_text": "The figurative sense connotes that things that were already contemptible (as if trash) are now also even worse (as if aflame).",
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"ref": "2015 August 28, Kevin Trahan, “The University of Illinois is a dumpster fire”, in insidenu.com, retrieved 27 Oct 2016:",
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"ref": "2025 March 2, Michael Sainato, quoting Mark Kelly, “Bernie Sanders dismisses Republicans’ ‘horrific’ calls for Zelenskyy to resign”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
"text": "“It was a dumpster fire of diplomacy,” Kelly said.",
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],
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{
"ipa": "/ˈdʌmpstəˈfaɪ.ə(ɹ)/",
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{
"ipa": "/ˈdʌmpstəˈfaɪə(ɹ)/",
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{
"ipa": "/ˈdʌmpstɚˈfaɪəɹ/",
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"word": "dumpster fire"
}
Download raw JSONL data for dumpster fire meaning in English (3.4kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-03-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-03-03 using wiktextract (05c257f and 9d9a410). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.