force majeure

1. 1.

   a natural and unavoidable catastrophe that interrupts the expected course of events

   “he discovered that his house was not insured against acts of God”

   Synonymsact of Godvis majorinevitable accidentunavoidable casualty

   Broadercalamity

Questions about force majeure

What does force majeure mean?

force majeure means "a natural and unavoidable catastrophe that interrupts the expected course of events".

What is another word for force majeure?

Close synonyms include act of God, vis major, inevitable accident, unavoidable casualty. 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 force majeure a common word?

force majeure is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.