/fʁaka/
Frrah-kah
Long a's. Rough rrr, silent s. It's mean, I know. If you can master this, then you can definitely speak French.
It's a literary word for loud clatter, great noise.
I like that it has two hard consonants. It sounds like the noise is doubled: fra-cas. Picture someone who stumbles and falls flat on their faces, crashing a chair on the process. Which is always somewhat funny.
It can also sound like an echo: something happened in a cave or a church, and the sound bounces off the walls.
'The hall resounded with a great fracas as colonel Mustard dropped the candlestick.'
Note that the English meaning of fight, brawl, does not exist in French. So fracas is a faux-ami , a false friend, which is a delightful category I'll soon be telling you more about.
Avec perte et fracas
/avɛk pɛʁt e fʁaka/
Ah-vek pairt ay frrah-kah
With loss and clatter.
In a brutal, spectacular way. Somewhat flamboyant.
'The Congressman was forced to resign when the scandal about his spendings became public. But he did it avec perte et fracas, bringing down a few other people on his way out.'
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