calamity means an event resulting in great loss. It carries an Arena rating of 1556, earned across 2 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, calamity ranks #1,802 of 14,297 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #2,350 of 14,448 for Most Incisive Words, #2,592 of 14,423 for Most Sublime Words, #2,678 of 14,410 for Most Ponderous Words.
calamity is pronounced /kəˈlæmɪti/.
Why “calamity” is a great word
An event causing great and often sudden damage, loss, or distress. From Middle French calamité, from Latin calamitās ('damage, loss, disaster'). Unlike 'catastrophe,' which implies an epic, final collapse, or 'misfortune,' which suggests a survivable stroke of bad luck, calamity carries the intimate shock of private ruin. It is the livestock swept away in the flash flood, the letter arriving on an ordinary Tuesday morning, the single shoe left in the road—a visceral collapse of a world that, moments before, felt whole. It speaks in the terrible clarity of a world stripped bare.
Etymology
From Middle French calamité, from Latin calamitās (“loss, damage; disaster”).
noun
- An event resulting in great loss.“Romeo come forth / Come forth thou fearfull man, / Affliction is enamor’d of thy parts: / And thou art wedded to calamitie.”
- The distress that results from some disaster.“They were behind twice, first in the 11th minute when James Morrison scored a goal that was a personal calamity for Hart, and then four minutes into the second half when Kenny Miller eluded Gary Cahill to score with a splendid left-foot drive.”
Words closest in meaning
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