noun
-
a disaster or misfortune, esp one causing extreme havoc, distress, or misery
-
a state or feeling of deep distress or misery
Synonym Usage
See disaster.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of calamity
First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English calamite, from Middle French, from Latin calamitāt-, stem of calamitās (also kadamitas ) “crop failure, disaster,” of disputed origin; often considered to be derived from calam(us) “cane, reed” + -itās -ity ( def. ), but perhaps instead akin to columus “safe,” incolumitās “safety”
Explanation
Use the word calamity to describe an event that causes great harm and misery, or a general state of distress or misery: the calamity of war. Near synonyms are catastrophe and disaster. The noun calamity is from Middle English calamytey, from Latin calamitas, a word which might be related to Latin clades "destruction." Calamity Jane was the nickname of a 19th-century woman living on the U.S. frontier. She claimed to have some very exciting adventures.
Vocabulary lists containing calamity
List 8
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The Crossover
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100 SAT words Beginning with "C"
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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.
See Examples For:
As Anthropic prepares to go public, Wall Street is grappling with the unprecedented question of how to price the risks associated with artificial-intelligence calamity.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026
Young Pavi and her twin sister, Nisha, live in a world that no longer sees the Avatar as humanity’s savior after it was devastated by a calamity.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026
Some survivors of the deadly floods on the Nepal-China border ran for their lives, others narrowly missed disaster, but all were eyewitnesses to a major calamity and its aftermath.
From Barron's ● Aug. 28, 2026
Shareholders are claiming the pop star failed to fulfil promises that she would be "actively building" the brand, saying her "abject dereliction of her duties" has left the company in a "state of financial calamity".
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
“No big Magnolia mystery after all. Just another homegrown calamity claiming a thousand small green lives. Faith.”
From "Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet" by Joanne Proulx
Today he is 79, and wears the calamities of the past more lightly than most of us could ever imagine.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
“We would not be who we are today without the calamities of our yesterdays,” wrote Salman Rushdie in a memoir, adapting a somewhat similar remark by Samuel Beckett.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
To avert future calamities, the forest outside Bordeaux must be thinned and its fire breaks widened, said Arthur Guérin-Turcq, a Sorbonne University geographer whose family cultivates pines near Le Porge.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 30, 2026
Databases such as Court Listener have a growing list of rulings on AI-generated calamities in the US courts.
From Barron's ● Jun. 15, 2026
He wondered what other calamities he was yet to learn of.
From "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
