Megadisaster

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An unexpected natural or man-made catastrophe of exceptional magnitude, causing unusually severe or unprecedented damage.

    "This chapter uses case studies along with a new data set focused on Kobe's nine wards after the city's 1995 megadisaster, the earthquake known in Japanese as the Hanshin Awaji Daishinsai (the Great Hanshin—Awaji Earthquake), […]"

  2. 2
    An unforeseen event of any kind with exceptionally unpleasant, distressing, or unfortunate results.

    "After the initial shock of discovering my scheduling megadisaster, I forced myself to take a deep breath."

Example

More examples

"This chapter uses case studies along with a new data set focused on Kobe's nine wards after the city's 1995 megadisaster, the earthquake known in Japanese as the Hanshin Awaji Daishinsai (the Great Hanshin—Awaji Earthquake), […]"

Etymology

From mega- + disaster.

Related phrases

man made

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