catastrophist
Americannoun
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a person who expects or predicts large-scale social catastrophe, upheaval, or disaster, or who believes that significant societal change comes about only through such events.
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a person who believes in geological or biological catastrophism.
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.
Studying France, it is always possible to strike a less "catastrophist" note.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2025
Do you still think of yourself as a catastrophist today?
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2022
Visions of Roman villas and Chinese literati gazing at mountains give way to back-to-the-land hippiedom circa Ken Kesey, then to wellness retreats and the eco-bunkers of catastrophist millionaires.
From New York Times ● Nov. 5, 2020
I find it not merely catastrophist but fatalistic, communicating that humanity can at best merely teeter slightly toward and away from its own extinction.
From Slate ● Jan. 23, 2020
So that, under the influence of a great catastrophist, Lyell became the greatest of the uniformitarians, and more than any one man was the destroyer of the older point of view.
From Rustic Sounds and Other Studies in Literature and Natural History by Darwin, Francis, Sir
Definitions 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.
