Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Catastrophic |
CatastrophicAdjective1. Extremely harmful; bringing physical or financial ruin; "a catastrophic depression"; "catastrophic illness"; "a ruinous course of action". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "catastrophic" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1878. (references) |
Synonym: CatastrophicSynonym: ruinous (adj). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Catastrophic |
| English words defined with "catastrophic": aftermath ♦ backwash ♦ catastrophic illness ♦ ruinous ♦ suicide pill ♦ wake. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "catastrophic": Black Thursday, branch to Fishkill ♦ Catastrophic crop insurance, catastrophic fail rate, catastrophic failure, catastrophic flood, catastrophic outage, Crop insurance ♦ Dam Failure ♦ fail safe, Federal Crop Insurance Reform Act of 1994 ♦ glacier burst, glacier flood, Glacier outburst flood ♦ jökulhaup,glacier outburst flood, jump off into never-never land ♦ network meltdown, Noninsured Assistance Program ♦ Streptococcus pyogenes. (references) |
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
| ||
Music |
| ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Measured drawing delineated by Robert G. Higginbotham, 1961. (Reproduction Number: HABS, AK,17-SITKA,1- Sheet 5 of 6) St. Michael's Cathedral, the center of the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska, was completed in 1848. In 1942 it became the first building in Alaska measured by HABS. Unfortunately, the Cathedral was destroyed by a fire that devastated downtown Sitka on January 2, 1966. The HABS drawings served as the basis for the reconstruction of the church. In this instance, the HABS documentation was the most complete and reliable source of information on the destroyed building, thus serving as a form of protection from catastrophic loss.Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | The catastrophic breach between HIV/AIDS prevention science and the legislative process must be healed. (references) | |
Acute splenic sequestration crisis, another catastrophic event, also contributes to mortality in infancy. (references) | ||
If a large enough volume of blood escapes from a ruptured AVM into the surrounding brain, the result can be a catastrophic stroke. (references) | ||
Business | Further investment in transmission, and particularly distribution infrastructure are necessary to improve system flexibility while reducing the likelihood of catastrophic failure. (references) | |
Economic History | Greece | The insurgency resulted in 100,000 killed and caused catastrophic economic disruption. (references) |
Japan | Japan's government takes these threats seriously and allocated $31 billion in Japanese fiscal year 2001 to help prepare for such catastrophic events. (references) | |
Colombia | The Colombian judicial system is also enforcing the mandatory health coverage to ensure patients receive treatment from the EPSs, even when affected by catastrophic diseases. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Dan Rather | None of them feels the country will rise up against Saddam Hussein. All of them believe that war is inevitable and will be catastrophic. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
Gerald Ford | 1974-1977 | I propose catastrophic health insurance for everybody covered by Medicare. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Catastrophic" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 99.75% of the time. "Catastrophic" is used about 401 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 99.75% | 400 | 13,972 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.25% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 401 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "catastrophic": catastrophic fail rate ♦ catastrophic failure ♦ catastrophic flood ♦ Catastrophic Illness ♦ catastrophic outage. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "catastrophic": near-catastrophic. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "catastrophic"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | katastrofik (calamitous, disastrous). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | فاجع (afflictive, agonizing, calamitous, distressing, grievous, painful, tragic), متعلق بفاجعة. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | катастрофален (disastrous). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 灾难 (Calamities, Calamitous, Calamity). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | tragický (coterminous, tragic), osudný (fatal, fated, fateful, ill fated, lethal, ominous, vital), katastrofický, katastrofální (devastating, dire, disastrous). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | pludselig totalfejl (catastrophic failure), katastrofisk svigt (catastrophic failure), katastroferisiko (catastrophic risk), katastrofefejl (catastrophic failure), katastrofe (catastrophe, catastrophic failure, disaster), katastrofalt udfald (catastrophic outage), katastrofal fejlhyppighed (catastrophic fail rate), katastrofal fejl (catastrophic failure), der kan opnaas kontrol over en alvorlig ukontrolleret udblaesning ved hjaelp af en hvilken som helst teknik til blokering af den udstroemmende reservoirvaeske enten i borehullet eller i formationen;den oftest anvendte metode er blokering af borehullet,dvs (control over a catastrophic blowout can be gained by any technique that blocks the escaping reservoir fluid either in the wellbore or in the formation;the method most frequently used is wellbore blockage). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | rampzalig (abject, miserable), catastrofaal (abject, catastrophe, miserable). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | katastrofa (miserable). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | romahduksellinen, katastrofaalinen. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | catastrophique (calamitous), funeste. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | katastrophal (atrocious, calamitous, cataclysmal, catastrophically, disastrous, disastrously). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | καταστρεπτικόσ (calamitous, destructive, disastrous), καταστροφικόσ. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | שואי, קטסטרופי, פורע י (calamitous, disastrous), "ר" אסון (calamitous, disastrous, fatal). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | végzetes (fatal, fated, fateful, fey, mortal, ruinous, suicidal, tragic, tragical), szerencsétlen (calamitous, disastrous, fey, hapless, ill fated, ill-starred, luckless, misadventurous, miserable, sad, star-crossed, stiff, to sink money in an unfortunate undertaking, unchancy, unfortunate, unhappy, unlucky, untoward, woeful, woesome, wretched), katasztrofális (disastrous). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | catastrofico. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 파국. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | craghoil. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Papiamen | desastroso (abject, miserable). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | atastrophiccay catastrófico (miserable). (various references) catastrofic, dezastruos (calamitous, cataclysmal, disastrous, disastrously, internecine, ruinous). (various references) катастрофический (disastous, disastrous). (various references) katastrofalan (disastrous). (various references) catastrófico (disastrous, dismal). (various references) katastrofal (calamitous, disasterous, disastrous). (various references) felâket gibi (catastrophical), felâket getiren (catastrophical, disastrous, fateful). (various references) катастрофічний (dismal). (various references) thảm hoạ (catastrophe, disaster), thê thảm. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "catastrophic": catastrophically. (additional references) | |
| |
"Catastrophic" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: catastraphic, catastrofic, catastroph, catastropha, catastrophi, catastrophie, catastrophise, catastrophy, catastropic, catestrophic, catostrophic. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "catastrophic" (pronounced ka'tustrÄ"fik) |
| 7 | -s t r Ä" f i k | geostrophic. |
| 6 | -t r Ä" f i k | heterotrophic. |
| 4 | -Ä" f i k | philosophic. |
| 3 | -f i k | anthropomorphic, autotrophic, calligraphic, choreographic, delphic, demographic, dimorphic, epigraphic, ethnographic, geographic, graphic, hieroglyphic, holographic, honorific, horrific, hydrographic, lithographic, logographic, metamorphic, micrographic, nonspecific, oceanographic, orographic, orphic, Pacific, photographic, polymorphic, pornographic, prolific, pseudoscientific, reprographic, scientific, specific, stenographic, stereographic, stratigraphic, terrific, topographic, traffic, transpacific, unscientific. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-c-c-h-i-o-p-r-s-t-t" | |
-2 letters: capacitors, cataphoric, cathartics. | |
-3 letters: atrophias, capacitor, cathartic, catoptric, chapattis, prostatic, trochaics. | |
-4 letters: acrostic, actorish, aircoach, aphorist, apractic, apricots, archaist, ascocarp, atrophia, atrophic, cariocas, castrati, castrato, chapatis, chapatti, chariots, charpais, chartist, citators, citharas, cochairs, coscript, haircaps, haricots, parashot, partitas, patriots, picachos, piscator, protatic, ricottas, spiccato, staccati, staccato, stoccata, strophic, tapiocas, thoracic, tipcarts, toccatas, trochaic. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-c-c-h-i-o-p-r-s-t-t" | |
+4 letters: catastrophically. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)43 61 74 61 73 74 72 6F 70 68 69 63 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
|
| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
|
| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
|
| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
|
Morse Code (1836) (references)-.-. .- - .- ... - .-. --- .--. .... .. -.-. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
|
Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000011 01100001 01110100 01100001 01110011 01110100 01110010 01101111 01110000 01101000 01101001 01100011 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)C a t a s t r o p h i c |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0043 0061 0074 0061 0073 0074 0072 006F 0070 0068 0069 0063 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
|
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)376786678586848182747569 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Photo Album 6. Quotations: Non-fiction 7. Quotations: Spoken 8. Quotations: Speeches | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Derivations 14. Rhymes 15. Anagrams 16. Orthography | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
