name, noun, slang ·2 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Any unwanted product or commercial failure, especially one given much publicity. US, informal

   "Tom Paris: Harry… I think we built an Edsel. Harry Kim: A what? Tom Paris: A lemon. A disaster waiting to happen."

Proper Noun

1. 1
   A male given name from the Germanic languages, variant of Etzel.
2. 2
   An automobile marque that was planned, manufactured, and launched with great advertising hype by the Ford Motor Company in September 1957, but was a notorious failure. historical

Synonyms

All synonyms

floplead balloonlead balloonlemon

Antonyms

All antonyms

sell like hot cakes

Example

More examples

"Tom Paris: Harry… I think we built an Edsel. Harry Kim: A what? Tom Paris: A lemon. A disaster waiting to happen."

Etymology

The automobile marque is named after Edsel Ford (1893–1943), son of Henry Ford. Compare German Etzel.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.