state of affairs

1. 1.

   the general state of things; the combination of circumstances at a given time

   “the present international situation is dangerous”

   “wondered how such a state of affairs had come about”

   “eternal truths will be neither true nor eternal unless they have fresh meaning for every new social situation”

   Synonymssituation

   Broaderstate

   Narrowerabsurdacceptanceballgamechallengechildlessnesscomplicationcrowdingdisequilibriumelementenvironment

Questions about state of affairs

What does state of affairs mean?

state of affairs means "the general state of things; the combination of circumstances at a given time".

What is another word for state of affairs?

Close synonyms include situation. 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 state of affairs a common word?

state of affairs 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.