Calamity

//kəˈlæmɪti// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An event resulting in great loss.

    "Romeo come forth / Come forth thou fearfull man, / Affliction is enamor’d of thy parts: / And thou art wedded to calamitie."

  2. 2
    an event resulting in great loss and misfortune wordnet
  3. 3
    The distress that results from some disaster.

    "They were behind twice, first in the 11th minute when James Morrison scored a goal that was a personal calamity for Hart, and then four minutes into the second half when Kenny Miller eluded Gary Cahill to score with a splendid left-foot drive."

Synonyms

All synonyms
adversityafflictionblowcasualtycatastrophedistress

Example

More examples

"A calamity was avoided by sheer luck."

Etymology

From Middle French calamité, from Latin calamitās (“loss, damage; disaster”).

Related phrases

calamity howler

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.