ruinous
Americanadjective
-
bringing or tending to bring ruin; destructive; disastrous.
a ruinous war.
- Synonyms:
- catastrophic, devastating, calamitous
-
fallen into ruin; dilapidated.
a ruinous house.
-
consisting of ruins.
a ruinous city from antiquity.
adjective
Other Word Forms
- nonruinous adjective
- nonruinously adverb
- nonruinousness noun
- ruinously adverb
- ruinousness noun
- unruinous adjective
- unruinously adverb
- unruinousness noun
Etymology
Origin of ruinous
1350–1400; Middle English ruynouse < Latin ruīnōsus, equivalent to ruīn ( a ) ruin + -ōsus -ous
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.
“It’s been years that we’ve been warning management about the ruinous state of equipment and lack of adequate staffing.”
“It seems to me this is a 60-40 choice,” he said, adding neither outcome would be ruinous: “I don’t think it’s a huge policy error on either side.”
I won’t spoil how, but it’s emotionally ruinous for the people involved, even if Mr. Laxe stages it with a bit of cheapening suspense.
John Kennedy’s greatest fear was that he and Nikita Khrushchev were making the same mistakes as past leaders, bumbling down the same ruinous road.
From Literature
The Lakota leader Sitting Bull defeated George Custer’s cavalry, but a sustained conflict with American forces proved ruinous.
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.
