catastrophe
Americannoun
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catastrophes
plural
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a sudden and widespread disaster.
the catastrophe of war.
- Synonyms:
- calamity, misfortune
- Antonyms:
- triumph
-
any misfortune, mishap, or failure; fiasco.
The play was so poor our whole evening was a catastrophe.
-
a final event or conclusion, usually an unfortunate one; a disastrous end.
the great catastrophe of the Old South at Appomattox.
- Antonyms:
- triumph
-
(in a drama) the point at which the circumstances overcome the central motive, introducing the close or conclusion; dénouement.
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Geology. a sudden, violent disturbance, especially of a part of the surface of the earth; cataclysm.
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Also called catastrophe function. Mathematics. any of the mathematical functions that describe the discontinuities that are treated in catastrophe theory.
noun
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a sudden, extensive, or notable disaster or misfortune
-
the denouement of a play, esp a classical tragedy
-
a final decisive event, usually causing a disastrous end
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Also called: cataclysm. any sudden and violent change in the earth's surface caused by flooding, earthquake, or some other rapid process
Synonym Usage
See disaster.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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supercatastrophenoun
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catastrophaladjective
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catastrophicadjective
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catastrophicaladjective
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catastrophicallyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of catastrophe
First recorded in 1570–80; from Greek katastrophḗ “an overturning,” from katastréphein “to overturn”; equivalent to cata- + strophe
Explanation
A catastrophe is a disaster. If a wedding reception is disrupted by a fistfight between the bride and her new mother-in-law, you could call the occasion a catastrophe. Catastrophe comes from a Greek word meaning "overturn." It originally referred to the disastrous finish of a drama, usually a tragedy. The definition was extended to mean "any sudden disaster" in the 1700s. Nowadays, catastrophe can be used to refer to very tragic events as well as more minor ones. A hurricane destroying hundreds of homes is certainly a catastrophe; baking a birthday cake without following a recipe might also result in catastrophe, if you don't know anything about cooking.
Vocabulary lists containing catastrophe
Break It Down: Cata
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Words from "The Avengers"
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Don't Distress: Words With Irregular Opposites
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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:
Profit was boosted by the company’s investment portfolio—with net investment income up 6% to a record $1.1 billion pre-tax—but was dented by higher catastrophe losses.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
The revised population estimate also allowed scientists to calculate the scale of the demographic catastrophe that followed European colonization.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 14, 2026
“Those are scenarios of varying levels of catastrophe, and that’s kind of how I’ve been seeing speculative fiction lately.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2026
An incinerator scheme to help clean up the ecological catastrophe turned out to be a vast multi-million-dollar scam that included a "ghost" incinerator for the capital Tirana that was never built.
From Barron's ● Oct. 8, 2026
It was about the threat of the earth colliding with another planet and how all the scientists in the world united to avert the catastrophe.
From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt
In June, Anthropic published steps it thinks governments should take to mitigate potential catastrophes from AI, including biological resilience measures.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026
He also called for "speedy incident reporting, classification, and reporting protocols so the world can learn from failures before they become catastrophes".
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026
Florida’s orange growers have faced a number of catastrophes over the years.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 19, 2026
Tuesday’s scene was a mixture of confusion and chaos, with first responders fanned out across two catastrophes and television news teams desperately trying to find out whether their journalists were safe.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026
The thing with Maya is, she’s never cared about popularity or social catastrophes.
From "Auggie & Me" by R. J. Palacio
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
