Meaning & use
calamity
An event that causes great and often sudden damage, distress, or suffering.
See it in a sentence
The earthquake was the worst calamity to strike the region in over a century.
Losing the harvest to drought was a calamity the small village struggled to recover from.
A note on using this word
Calamity suggests widespread suffering or loss, similar to catastrophe, but is somewhat more literary and less common in everyday speech.
Words with a similar meaning
disastercatastrophe
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Words with an opposite meaning
Make it your own
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