What is another word for fatal flaw?

Pronunciation: [fˈe͡ɪtə͡l flˈɔː] (IPA)

The term "fatal flaw" is a powerful expression that refers to a significant personality flaw or characteristic that is likely to lead to someone's downfall. Some alternate words for "fatal flaw" are "vulnerability," "weakness," or "limitation." These words point to the same idea of a characteristic that can ultimately cause someone harm or lead to their ruin. Another synonym for "fatal flaw" is "achilles heel," which is a term commonly used to refer to a weakness in someone's character or skill set that can cause them to fail. Whatever the word used, a fatal flaw can be the harbinger of destruction for anyone, from the most powerful leader to the ordinary individual.

What are the hypernyms for Fatal flaw?

A hypernym is a word with a broad meaning that encompasses more specific words called hyponyms.

Famous quotes with Fatal flaw

  • But this brings us to what I consider the fatal flaw in the monetarist prescriptions.  If the leader of the school cannot make up his own mind regarding what the most desirable rate of monetary increase should be, what does he expect to happen when the decision is put in the hands of the politicians?  …  The fatal flaw in the monetarist prescription, in brief, is that it postulates that money should consist of irredeemable paper notes and that the final power of determining how many of these are issued should be placed in the hands of the government—that is, in the hands of the politicians in office.  The assumption that these politicians could be trusted to act responsibly, particularly for any prolonged period, seems incredibly naive.  The real problem today is the opposite of what the monetarists suggest.  It is how to get the arbitrary power over the stock of money of the hands of the government, of the hands of the politicians.
    Henry Hazlitt
  • We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled the Sixties. Uppers are going out of style. This was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary’s trip. He crashed around America selling “consciousness expansion” without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him too seriously. After West Point and the Priesthood, LSD must have seemed entirely logical to him … but there is not much satisfaction in knowing that he blew it very badly for himself, because he took too many others down with him. Not that they didn’t deserve it: No doubt they all Got What Was Coming To Them. All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours, too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped to create … a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody—or at least some force —is tending that Light at the end of the tunnel.
    Timothy Leary
  • Moore called the Affordable Care Act “awful” and added that, “Obamacare’s rocky start … is a result of one fatal flaw: The Affordable Care Act is a pro-insurance-industry plan implemented by a president who knew in his heart that a single-payer, Medicare-for-all model was the true way to go.” Nonetheless, Moore considered the plan a "godsend" since it provides a start "to get what we deserve: universal quality health care.”
    Michael Moore
  • The idea of evil as it appears in modern secular thought is an inheritance from Christianity. To be sure, rationalists have repudiated the idea; but it is not long before they find they cannot do without it. What has been understood as evil in the past, they insist, is error – a product of ignorance that human beings can overcome. Here they are repeating a Zoroastrian theme, which was absorbed into later versions of monotheism: the belief that ‘as the “lord of creation” man is at the forefront of the contest between the powers of Truth and Untruth.’ But how to account for the fact that humankind is deaf to the voice of reason? At this point rationalists invoke sinister interests – wicked priests, profiteers from superstition, malignant enemies of enlightenment, secular incarnations of the forces of evil. As so often is the case, secular thinking follows a pattern dictated by religion while suppressing religion’s most valuable insights. Modern rationalists reject the idea of evil while being obsessed by it. Seeing themselves as embattled warriors in a struggle against darkness, it has not occurred to them to ask why humankind is so fond of the dark. They are left with the same problem of evil that faces religion. The difference is that religious believers know they face an insoluble difficulty, while secular believers do not. Aware of the evil in themselves, traditional believers know it cannot be expelled from the world by human action. Lacking this saving insight, secular believers dream of creating a higher species. They have not noticed the fatal flaw in their schemes: any such species will be created by actually existing human beings.
    John Gray (philosopher)
  • Like all real heroes, Charley had a fatal flaw. He refused to believe that he had gonorrhea, whereas the truth was that he did.
    Kurt Vonnegut

Related words: fatal in design, death by design, deadly design flaw, fatal design flaw, fatal design flaws, fatal errors

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