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View synonyms for cataclysm

cataclysm

[ kat-uh-kliz-uhm ]

noun

  1. any violent upheaval, especially one of a social or political nature.
  2. Physical Geography. a sudden and violent physical action producing changes in the earth's surface.
  3. an extensive flood; deluge.


cataclysm

/ ˈkætəˌklɪzəm /

noun

  1. a violent upheaval, esp of a political, military, or social nature
  2. a disastrous flood; deluge
  3. geology another name for catastrophe


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Derived Forms

  • ˌcataˈclysmic, adjective
  • ˌcataˈclysmically, adverb

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Word History and Origins

Origin of cataclysm1

1625–35; < Late Latin cataclysmos (Vulgate) < Greek kataklysmós flood (akin to kataklýzein to flood), equivalent to kata- cata- + klysmós a washing

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Word History and Origins

Origin of cataclysm1

C17: via French from Latin, from Greek kataklusmos deluge, from katakluzein to flood, from kluzein to wash

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Synonym Study

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Example Sentences

We were innocent of the global health cataclysm that was about to transpire, one which would force many of us to reassess what we had long taken for granted.

The pandemic spawned an American existential crisis, a productivity slump, a small-business cataclysm.

From Vox

They want to cut the capital gains tax, sure — but its importance pales next to the urgency of stopping the cataclysm that would engulf us all if Democrats were to hold power.

It’s Round 74 of the Post Pundit 2020 Power Ranking, and barring a meteor strike, extraterrestrial invasion or unexpected constitutional cataclysm, we made it!

It’s a landscape of cataclysm and of regrowth, where nature shows off its singular ability to recover and revive, year after year.

In the cataclysm that followed, the survival of republican government indeed was in peril.

The reader feels the personal cataclysm of four kibbutznik paratroopers as their universe falls from grace.

That generic description of right-wing economics, however, is too vague to capture specific cataclysm that occurred in 2008.

And I wanted to know what (besides the obvious cataclysm of 9/11) had turned him into such a radical voice on the subject.

The poet remains coolly detached: a circumspect observer in the face of cataclysm.

I see unutterable defeat, the success of the rebellion, a great catastrophe, a moral and physical cataclysm.

Back had they gone to town, and then came the cataclysm of noon.

The aftermath of the war is a spiritual cataclysm such as civilized mankind has never before known.

The legend begins with a deluge myth; a cataclysm ended a period of human existence.

Nothing short of a seismic cataclysm—an earthquake, in fact—could deter a San Francisco audience after that.

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