calamity

1. 1.

   an event resulting in great loss and misfortune

   “the whole city was affected by the irremediable calamity”

   “the earthquake was a disaster”

   Synonymscatastrophedisastertragedycataclysm

   Broadermisfortune

   Narroweract of Godapocalypsefaminekiss of deathmeltdownplaguevisitationtidal wavetsunami

Other forms of calamity

plural

calamities·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about calamity

What does calamity mean?

calamity means "an event resulting in great loss and misfortune".

How many syllables are in calamity?

calamity has 4 syllables: ca-lam-i-ty. The stress falls on "lam". In IPA it is /kəˈlæməti/.

What is another word for calamity?

Close synonyms include catastrophe, disaster, tragedy, cataclysm. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is calamity a common word?

calamity is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.