noun
cataclysm
KAT-uh-kliz-um/ˈkætəklɪzəm/
A sudden, violent disaster or upheaval causing great change.
The devastating flood is a cataclysm for the settlement.
Etymology
The image of washing down produced the sense ‘deluge’ or ‘inundation,’ originally especially Noah’s flood in English. That overwhelming flood became a model for a destructive disaster or upheaval.
In context
The first shaky one is the cataclysm. There was a great war, a fallen empire, or a magical apocalypse, and civilization got knocked all the way back down to swords and never climbed out again.
More examples
- The novel imagined a global cataclysm.
- A political cataclysm swept away the old order.
- The flood left evidence of a sudden cataclysm.
Forms
cataclysm · cataclysms
Similar words
- catastrophe
- Both mean major disaster; cataclysm often suggests a violent upheaval transforming a whole system or region.
- upheaval
- An upheaval is disruptive change; cataclysm suggests exceptional violence or scale.