Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A state of hardship or affliction; misfortune.
  • noun A calamitous event.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Adverse fortune or fate; a condition or state marked by misfortune, calamity, distress, or unhappiness.
  • noun An unfortunate event or circumstance; an ill chance; a misfortune or calamity: generally in the plural.
  • noun Synonyms Trouble, distress, misery, disaster, woe, ill luck.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Opposition; contrariety.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable The state of adverse conditions; state of misfortune or calamity.
  • noun countable An event that is adverse; calamity.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a state of misfortune or affliction
  • noun a stroke of ill fortune; a calamitous event

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French adversité, from Latin adversitātem, the accusative singular of adversitās, from adversus, the perfect passive participle of advertō (" I turn toward").

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