cataclysm

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“
What they call a cataclysm--you understand I am waiting for the conclusion," said Carolus, whose intelligence began to be a little shaky The conclusion--yes, that is the end of the argument, as death is the end of life, and marriage of love.

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Definitions (11)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A violent upheaval that causes great destruction or brings about a fundamental change.
  2. noun A violent and sudden change in the earth's crust.
  3. noun A devastating flood.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (5)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • For the power that Browning rejoiced to imagine was pre-eminently sudden; an unforeseen cataclysm, abruptly changing the conditions it found, and sharply marking off the future from the past. —  Robert Browning
  • A little later, while they enjabonaban the one to the other, the word cataclysm crossed by their mind. —  New Document
  • Were the artifacts damaged in some way by some unknown cataclysm -- or were they constructed so? —  F ;SF; - vol 090 issue 06 - June 1996
  • It is a world cataclysm, and before it ends it may unsettle everything fine and wholesome in America. —  WOODROW WILSON AS I KNOW HIM
  • He had been a little unfortunate in some of the dates he had predicted for the final cataclysm, these dates having slipped by uneventfully without anything whatever happening, but finally definitely fixed on a date in 1867 as the exact date of the Great Catastrophe. —  The Days Before Yesterday
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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cataclysm:   cataclysms
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. French cataclysme, from Latin cataclysmos, deluge, from Greek kataklusmos, from katakluzein, to inundate : kata-, intensive pref.; see cata- + kluzein, to wash away.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = French cataclysme = Spanish Italian cataclismo = Portuguese cataclysmo, from Latin cataclysmos, from Greek κατακλυσμός, a flood, deluge, from κατακλύζειν, dash over, flood, inundate, from κατά, down, + κλύζειν, wash, dash, as waves; cf. Latin cluere, cleanse.
 

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/ˈkætəklɪzm/
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