Meaning & use
disastrous
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Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Causing great harm, damage or loss.
Grammar: Used before a noun or after a verb: disastrous floods, or the effects were disastrous.
Patterns
- disastrous for someone
- have disastrous consequences
The drought had disastrous effects on local farmers.
A single wrong decision proved disastrous for the company.
The storm was disastrous for the coastal towns.
adjectivecomparableinformal
Extremely unsuccessful or going very badly.
Grammar: Often used informally for plans, events and performances that fail badly.
Patterns
- a disastrous start
- turn out disastrous
Our first date was disastrous because the restaurant lost the booking.
The team had a disastrous start to the season.
His attempt to fix the sink was disastrous.
Word forms
| comparative | more disastrous |
|---|---|
| superlative | most disastrous |
Common combinations
- disastrous consequences
- Ignoring the warning could have disastrous consequences.
- a disastrous mistake
- Leaving the gate open was a disastrous mistake.
- prove disastrous
- The new policy proved disastrous for small shops.
- a disastrous failure
- The launch was a disastrous failure.
- a disastrous start
- The tour got off to a disastrous start when the bus broke down.
Synonyms and how they differ
- catastrophic
- Catastrophic is even stronger and suggests huge, often irreversible destruction, while disastrous can describe serious but recoverable failure.
- calamitous
- Calamitous is more formal and literary, and emphasizes the grief or misfortune caused.
- ruinous
- Ruinous is about causing financial or total ruin specifically, whereas disastrous is broader.
- devastating
- Devastating stresses the emotional or physical shock of the damage, not only the bad outcome.
Opposites
Word family
- disaster noun
- an event causing great harm or failure
- disastrously adverb
- in a way that causes great harm or failure
- disastrousness noun
- the quality of being disastrous
Commonly confused: disastrous or disaster?
disastrous vs disaster
Disaster is a noun, as in a natural disaster. Disastrous is the adjective, so you say a disastrous effect, not a disaster effect.
Practice
Which word completes the sentence correctly? The new tax had ___ consequences for small businesses.
Choose one answer.
An adjective is needed before the noun consequences, so disastrous is correct. Disastrously is an adverb and the other two are nouns.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “disastrous”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.