Götterdämmerung
Americannoun
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German Mythology. the destruction of the gods and of all things in a final battle with evil powers: erroneous modern translation of the Old Icelandic Ragnarǫk, meaning “fate of the gods,” misunderstood as Ragnarökkr, meaning “twilight of the gods.”
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(italics) See The Ring of the Nibelung.
noun
Etymology
Origin of Götterdämmerung
1875–80; < German, equivalent to Götter, plural of Gott God + Dämmerung twilight
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But the irrepressible Mr. Billingham turns even this Götterdämmerung into a glorious comic moment.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
I assumed that he would only choose all-out war in Ukraine if he felt he was threatened by outside forces in the Götterdämmerung of his regime.
From Slate ● Feb. 26, 2022
I would love to believe that there’s something not just pathetic but noble about Jeb’s self-immolation, and that he’s either deliberately or unconsciously choosing to stage the Bush family’s Götterdämmerung on a grand scale.
From Salon ● Oct. 31, 2015
About the waves, Mr. Finnegan tells us, “I realized I was seeing long German words in Gothic script, Arbeiterpartei and Oberkommando and Weltanschauung and Götterdämmerung, marching incongruously across the warm gray walls.”
From New York Times ● Jul. 21, 2015
His light was not lost in a storm-cloud nor eclipse, but in the awful Radnorok, the Götterdämmerung, when sun and stars fall from a blank heaven.
From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science October, 1877. Vol XX - No. 118 by Various
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