catastrophic

Sometimes cata·strophi·cal,

[kat-uh-strof-ik]

adjective

1. of the nature of a catastrophe, or disastrous event; calamitous.

   a catastrophic failure of the dam.

Other Word Forms

• catastrophically adverb
• noncatastrophic adjective
• noncatastrophically adverb
• supercatastrophic adjective
• uncatastrophic adjective
• uncatastrophically adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of catastrophic¹

First recorded in 1820–30; from Greek katastrophikós, equivalent to catastroph(e) ( def. ) + -ic ( def. )

Example Sentences

On August 22, the United Nations declared a famine in Gaza, the first in the Middle East, after experts warned 500,000 people faced a "catastrophic" threat.

Read more on Barron's

Israel's military campaign has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians and including more than 18,000 children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and led to a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.

Read more on BBC

The city doesn’t have the finances, institutional knowledge or equipment to rapidly respond to catastrophic disasters like the tornado that struck in May, which the city estimates caused $1.6 billion in damage.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Some of the consequences could be catastrophic, Kettl and other scholars warned.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

In response to such outsize losses, Newsom signed Assembly Bill 226, which will enable the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank to issue bonds on behalf of the plan to pay for catastrophic claims.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• calamitous 
• cataclysmic 
• disastrous 
• fatal 
• ruinous 
• tragic