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HAVOC
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Violent and needless disturbance
Synonyms:
havoc; mayhem
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("havoc" is a kind of...):
disturbance (the act of disturbing something or someone; setting something in motion)
Context examples:
Before the wedding the tailor was to catch him a wild boar that made great havoc in the forest, and the huntsmen should give him their help.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
Especially did they enjoy the havoc worked amongst the newcomers' dogs by White Fang and his disreputable gang.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
It plays havoc with the ecosystem and the consequences may extend to local people who depend on marine biodiversity for income and as a source of food.
(New way to save endangered sharks – and our seafood, SciDev.Net)
All, save I, were at rest or in enjoyment; I, like the arch-fiend, bore a hell within me, and finding myself unsympathised with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
And, indeed, I was glad not to have been a spectator of the havoc they made, because I am confident it would have sensibly touched me, by bringing former passages into my mind, which I would rather have forgot.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
We made great havoc in Touraine, until we came into Romorantin, where I chanced upon a gold chain and two bracelets of jasper, which were stolen from me the same day by a black-eyed wench from the Ardennes.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
When White Fang was nearly five years old, Grey Beaver took him on another great journey, and long remembered was the havoc he worked amongst the dogs of the many villages along the Mackenzie, across the Rockies, and down the Porcupine to the Yukon.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
