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CALAMITY
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
An event resulting in great loss and misfortune
Example:
the earthquake was a disaster
Synonyms:
calamity; cataclysm; catastrophe; disaster; tragedy
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("calamity" 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 "calamity"):
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)
Derivation:
calamitous ((of events) having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences; bringing ruin)
Context examples:
And yet my thoughts were idle; not intent on the calamity that weighed upon my heart, but idly loitering near it.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
A dreadful calamity! such an immense quantity of valuable property destroyed: hardly any of the furniture could be saved.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
I was often tempted, when all was at peace around me, and I the only unquiet thing that wandered restless in a scene so beautiful and heavenly—if I except some bat, or the frogs, whose harsh and interrupted croaking was heard only when I approached the shore—often, I say, I was tempted to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters might close over me and my calamities for ever.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
I answered, I was an Englishman, drawn by ill fortune into the greatest calamity that ever any creature underwent, and begged, by all that was moving, to be delivered out of the dungeon I was in.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Her faith in her mother was a little shaken by the worldly plans attributed to her by Mrs. Moffat, who judged others by herself, and the sensible resolution to be contented with the simple wardrobe which suited a poor man's daughter was weakened by the unnecessary pity of girls who thought a shabby dress one of the greatest calamities under heaven.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
He was oppressed with a sense of calamity happening, if it were not calamity already happened; and as he crossed the last watershed and dropped down into the valley toward camp, he proceeded with greater caution.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
It is useless, and the time awfully fails me, to prolong this description; no one has ever suffered such torments, let that suffice; and yet even to these, habit brought—no, not alleviation—but a certain callousness of soul, a certain acquiescence of despair; and my punishment might have gone on for years, but for the last calamity which has now fallen, and which has finally severed me from my own face and nature.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
As the endurance of my childish days had done its part to make me what I was, so greater calamities would nerve me on, to be yet better than I was; and so, as they had taught me, would I teach others.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
I summoned strength to ask what had caused this calamity.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The relish with which Mr. Micawber described himself as a prey to these dismal calamities, was only to be equalled by the emphasis with which he read his letter; and the kind of homage he rendered to it with a roll of his head, when he thought he had hit a sentence very hard indeed.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
