cataclysm means A sudden, violent event. It carries an Arena rating of 1657, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, cataclysm ranks #165 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #426 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #541 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #997 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say.
cataclysm is pronounced /ˈkætəˌklɪzm̩/.
Why “cataclysm” is a great word
A sudden and violent event, especially a great flood or a drastic upheaval causing widespread destruction. From French cataclysme, from Latin cataclysmus, from Ancient Greek κατακλυσμός (kataklusmós, 'deluge, flood'), from κατακλύζω (kataklúzō, 'to dash over, flood'), from κατά (katá, 'downwards') + κλύζω (klúzō, 'to wash, dash over'). Unlike catastrophe, which emphasizes a disastrous conclusion, or upheaval, which denotes a violent disruption of order, a cataclysm implies a primordial, overwhelming force that erases and reshapes the very ground of existence. It is the Biblical flood scouring the world clean, the tectonic plates grinding a city to dust, the silent arrival of a wave that obliterates a coastline—a world scoured clean by the ancient, indifferent insistence of the sea remembering its old dominion.
Etymology
From French cataclysme, from Latin cataclysmus, from Ancient Greek κατακλυσμός (kataklusmós, “deluge, flood”), from κατακλύζω (kataklúzō, “to dash over, flood, deluge, inundate”), from κατά (katá, “downwards, towards”) + κλύζω (klúzō, “to wash off, to wash away, to dash over”).
noun
- A sudden, violent event.
- A sudden and violent change in the earth's crust.
- A great flood.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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