train wreck

• trainwreck
• train-wreck (dated)

train wreck (plural train wrecks)

1. The aftermath of a train crash.
2. (figuratively) A disaster, especially one which is large in scale and readily seen by public observers.
   • 1986, Hugh Sidey, "The Presidency: Colliding with Realities," Time, 1 Sept.:

     There is a feeling in Washington that we are gathering at the side of the track to watch a gigantic economic train wreck one of these days.

   • 2007, Mel Odom, Blood Evidence‎, →ISBN, page 168:

     "Your personal life has been, and is, a train wreck."

   • 2009, Matthue Roth, Never Mind The Goldbergs

     “Hrmm. I see your stylist's been working nights.” He surveyed the train wreck of my hair in the rearview mirror.

3. (figuratively) Someone (especially a woman) who is unbalanced and considered a mess, a disaster, one who is suffering personal ruin.
   • 2007, Donna Hogan, Train Wreck: The Life and Death of Anna Nicole Smith, Phoenix Books Incorporated (→ISBN), blurb:

     She may have been a train wreck, but she was a train wreck people still can't seem to get enough of. The sordid but fascinating story of her vicious, no-holds-barred battle with life is one of the most gripping, sex-soaked biographies in years.

   • 2016, Sady Doyle, Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear... and Why, page 24:

     [...] women, by and large, do not like themselves very much: their ambition gaps, their orgasm gaps, their imposter syndrome, [...] their trainwrecks, and their need for trainwrecks; the enduring, self-loathing need to find someone about whom they can say well, at least I'm not that girl.

• In the UK, train crash is preferred for the literal sense, and car crash is more common but not exclusively used for the metaphorical sense.

• (literal train wreck): (hobo slang) prairie meet, (railroad jargon) cornfield meet
• (disaster): catastrophe, car crash, car wreck

train wreck (third-person singular simple present train wrecks, present participle train wrecking, simple past and past participle train wrecked)

1. To ruin utterly and catastrophically, to cause to end in disaster.
   • For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:trainwreck.
   • 2003, Peter A. Laporta, Ignite the Passion - A Guide to Motivational Leadership, AuthorHouse (→ISBN), page 57:

     [...] basic fundamental communication steps must be achieved so not to train wreck the new employee.

   • 2011, Jaden Lane, If You Could Read My Mind, Xlibris Corporation (→ISBN), page 157:

     "I want this, too, I want you. Like really want you more than anything I've wanted in a long time. But if you force it, you're going to train wreck the whole thing in a fiery mess over a steep cliff with jagged rocks below."

• hot mess

• train wreck (slang): When the parts in an ensemble "collide" because the musicians are not playing together. Hal Leonard Pocket Music Dictionary, p. 122.
• Train wreck: in jazz, when everything comes off the rails - someone misses a repeat, skips the bridge, and so on. Dolmetsch Online.
• “train wreck” (US) / “train wreck” (UK) in Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford University Press.