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
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of ruinous
1350–1400; Middle English ruynouse < Latin ruīnōsus, equivalent to ruīn ( a ) ruin + -ōsus -ous
Explanation
Something ruinous is really terrible or devastating, like a ruinous hurricane that floods your house or the ruinous effect of a new law on a country's poorest citizens. The adjective ruinous perfectly describes something so bad that it truly causes ruin, "the destruction or disintegration of something." A house fire can be ruinous, and so can a bad hand at a poker table, if the player has bet her last dollar. Ruinous and ruin comes from the Latin root ruina, "a collapse, a rushing down, a tumbling down."
Vocabulary lists containing ruinous
Hamilton
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30 GRE Words Beginning with "Q" "R" and "S"
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Dubliners
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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.
Ruinous competition amid fixed costs bankrupted dozens of airlines in the 1980s and 1990s.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 10, 2026
Ruinous hyperinflation, which the GMD was unable to control, added to the strains of urban life.
From Textbooks • Dec. 14, 2022
Ruinous urban planning during the 1960s knocked the wind out of the neighborhood, but by the late ’90s the local community had come up with a unified revitalization plan.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 11, 2016
A League’s Ruinous Battle Against Itself By Jeff Z. Klein Bill Daly, the N.H.L.'s deputy commissioner, is a man not normally given to purple public statements.
From New York Times • Dec. 30, 2012
"Ruinous" these farm buildings certainly were; but "uninhabited"—obviously not quite!
From The Spy in Black by Clouston, J. Storer (Joseph Storer)
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.
