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DISASTER
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
An act that has disastrous consequences
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("disaster" is a kind of...):
destruction; devastation (the termination of something by causing so much damage to it that it cannot be repaired or no longer exists)
Sense 2
Meaning:
An event resulting in great loss and misfortune
Example:
the earthquake was a disaster
Synonyms:
calamity; cataclysm; catastrophe; disaster; tragedy
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("disaster" 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 "disaster"):
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:
disastrous ((of events) having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences; bringing ruin)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A state of extreme (usually irremediable) ruin and misfortune
Example:
his policies were a disaster
Synonyms:
catastrophe; disaster
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("disaster" is a kind of...):
adversity; hard knocks; hardship (a state of misfortune or affliction)
Context examples:
Who could have guessed that it was the prelude to our supreme disaster?
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Before, I had only imagined the wretchedness of my desolated home; the reality came on me as a new, and a not less terrible, disaster.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
But the novel disaster quenched her courage for a time, for public opinion is a giant which has frightened stouter-hearted Jacks on bigger beanstalks than hers.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Where the ball passed, not one of us precisely knew, but I fancy it must have been over our heads and that the wind of it may have contributed to our disaster.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Divine justice pursued its course; disasters came thick on me: I was forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of death.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The latter, I believe, he considered a match for any kind of disaster not absolutely mortal.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
From an expression which my husband dropped in the first shock of this disaster I understood that terrible public consequences might arise from the loss of this document.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I was among the missing dead of the Martinez disaster, an unrecovered body.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
Natural and man-made disasters create refugee populations with immediate and long-term health problems.
(International Health, NIH)
Pollution is the world’s No. 1 killer, a new study says, causing more premature deaths than war, terrorism, natural disasters, cigarettes and disease.
(Pollution is the World’s No. 1 Killer, VOA)
