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disaster

[ dih-zas-ter, -zah-ster ]
/ dɪˈzæs tər, -ˈzɑ stər /
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See synonyms for: disaster / disasters on Thesaurus.com
noun
a calamitous event, especially one occurring suddenly and causing great loss of life, damage, or hardship, as a flood, airplane crash, or business failure.
Obsolete. an unfavorable aspect of a star or planet.
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Origin of disaster

1585–95; <Middle French desastre<Italian disastro, equivalent to dis-dis-1 + astro star <Latin astrum<Greek ástron

synonym study for disaster

1. Disaster, calamity, catastrophe, cataclysm refer to adverse happenings often occurring suddenly and unexpectedly. A disaster may be caused by carelessness, negligence, bad judgment, or the like, or by natural forces, as a hurricane or flood: a railroad disaster. Calamity suggests great affliction, either personal or general; the emphasis is on the grief or sorrow caused: the calamity of losing a child. Catastrophe refers especially to the tragic outcome of a personal or public situation; the emphasis is on the destruction or irreplaceable loss: the catastrophe of a defeat in battle. Cataclysm, physically an earth-shaking change, refers to a personal or public upheaval of unparalleled violence: a cataclysm that turned his life in a new direction.

OTHER WORDS FROM disaster

pre·dis·as·ter, noun

Words nearby disaster

disarticulate, disassemble, disassembler, disassociate, disassortative mating, disaster, disaster area, disaster capitalism, disastrous, disavow, disavowal
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Words related to disaster

calamity, catastrophe, collapse, crash, debacle, defeat, emergency, failure, fiasco, flood, harm, hazard, holocaust, mishap, setback, tragedy, woe, adversity, affliction, bale

How to use disaster in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for disaster

disaster
/ (dɪˈzɑːstə) /
noun
an occurrence that causes great distress or destruction
a thing, project, etc, that fails or has been ruined

Derived forms of disaster

disastrous, adjective

Word Origin for disaster

C16 (originally in the sense: malevolent astral influence): from Italian disastro, from dis- (pejorative) + astro star, from Latin astrum, from Greek astron
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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