ruinous

1. 1.

   extremely harmful; bringing physical or financial ruin

   “a catastrophic depression”

   “catastrophic illness”

   “a ruinous course of action”

   Synonymscatastrophic

   Similarharmful
2. 2.

   causing injury or blight; especially affecting with sudden violence or plague or ruin

   “the blasting effects of the intense cold on the budding fruit”

   “the blasting force of the wind blowing sharp needles of sleet in our faces”

   “a ruinous war”

   Synonymsblasting

   Similardestructive

Questions about ruinous

What does ruinous mean?

ruinous means "extremely harmful; bringing physical or financial ruin". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in ruinous?

ruinous has 3 syllables: ru-i-nous. The stress falls on "ru". In IPA it is /ˈɹuənəs/.

What is another word for ruinous?

Close synonyms include catastrophic, blasting. 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 ruinous a common word?

ruinous is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.