{
  "id": "domino-effect.stacked",
  "term": "domino effect",
  "sense": "stacked",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 15,
  "arena": "failure propagation",
  "domain": "mechanical, social, informational",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "A sequence of failures where each part's window ends at a parameter value that is set by the previous part's failure, so no single wall is crossed but the whole chain collapses.",
  "folk_gloss": "One event causes a similar event, which causes another, and so on.",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "window.range",
      "wall.range-end",
      "parameter.condition",
      "drift.aimless",
      "structure.arrangement"
    ],
    "interaction": "parts set each other's walls",
    "novel_properties": [
      "sequential-collapse"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "In 2003, a single tree falling on a power line in Ohio triggered cascading grid failures, blacking out 50 million people across eight states and Ontario.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "The extinction of the passenger pigeon followed decades of overhunting, habitat loss, and social disintegration once population density fell below viable thresholds.",
      "domain": "biology"
    },
    {
      "text": "Lehman Brothers' collapse in 2008 set off credit market freezes, insurer insolvencies, and global stock plunges within 72 hours.",
      "domain": "economics"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "domino effect"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "phrases:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.7,
    "sources": [
      "folk phrase — stacked dependency"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-domino-effect.stacked"
}