CATASTROPHE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does catastrophe mean? 

• CATASTROPHE (noun)
  The noun CATASTROPHE has 3 senses:

1. an event resulting in great loss and misfortune

2. a state of extreme (usually irremediable) ruin and misfortune

3. a sudden violent change in the earth's surface

  Familiarity information: CATASTROPHE used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CATASTROPHE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An event resulting in great loss and misfortune

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

calamity; cataclysm; catastrophe; disaster; tragedy

Context example:

the earthquake was a disaster

Hypernyms ("catastrophe" is a kind of...):

bad luck; misfortune (unnecessary and unforeseen trouble resulting from an unfortunate event)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "catastrophe"):

act of God; force majeure; inevitable accident; unavoidable casualty; vis major (a natural and unavoidable catastrophe that interrupts the expected course of events)

apocalypse (a cosmic cataclysm in which God destroys the ruling powers of evil)

famine (a severe shortage of food (as through crop failure) resulting in violent hunger and starvation and death)

kiss of death (something that is ruinous)

meltdown (a disaster comparable to a nuclear meltdown)

plague (any large scale calamity (especially when thought to be sent by God))

visitation (any disaster or catastrophe)

tidal wave (an unusual (and often destructive) rise of water along the seashore caused by a storm or a combination of wind and high tide)

tsunami (a cataclysm resulting from a destructive sea wave caused by an earthquake or volcanic eruption)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A state of extreme (usually irremediable) ruin and misfortune

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

catastrophe; disaster

Context example:

his policies were a disaster

Hypernyms ("catastrophe" is a kind of...):

adversity; hard knocks; hardship (a state of misfortune or affliction)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A sudden violent change in the earth's surface

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Synonyms:

cataclysm; catastrophe

Hypernyms ("catastrophe" is a kind of...):

geological phenomenon (a natural phenomenon involving the structure or composition of the earth)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "catastrophe"):

nuclear winter (a long period of darkness and extreme cold that scientists predict would follow a full-scale nuclear war; a layer of dust and smoke in the atmosphere would cover the earth and block the rays of the sun; most living organisms would perish)

 Context examples 

Besides the obvious positive reading promising food, I found multiple negative ones which warn of the impending catastrophe.

(‘Trickster god’ used fake news in Babylonian Noah story, University of Cambridge)

Such was the general situation last Monday night when the catastrophe occurred.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This catastrophe I am inclined to regard as an unhappy accident, for I am convinced that the lady had no intention of inflicting so grievous an injury.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Researchers say it is important to stay ahead of the resistance to avoid what they are calling a public health catastrophe.

(Malaria-carrying Mosquitoes Becoming Resistant to Bed Nets in Southern Africa, VOA)

This allele may be particularly essential in the early embryo to sense incomplete DNA replication and prevent mitotic catastrophe.

(ATR wt Allele, NCI Thesaurus)

O, we must be careful. I foresee that we may yet involve your master in some dire catastrophe.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I hardly know whether I shall have the power to detail it; yet the tale which I have recorded would be incomplete without this final and wonderful catastrophe.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Let me give you, with as much detail as I can, the sequence of events which have led us to this catastrophe.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They generally run on the same theme—courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe—marriage.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Your own opinion is, then, that some unforeseen catastrophe has occurred to him?

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)