Disastrous

Definition: Disastrous

Disastrous

Adjective

1. (of events) having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences; bringing ruin; "the stock market crashed on Black Friday"; "a calamitous defeat"; "the battle was a disastrous end to a disastrous campaign"; "such doctrines, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my theory"- Charles Darwin; "it is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it"- Douglas MacArthur; "a fateful error".

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
 

Date "disastrous" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references)

Synonyms: Disastrous

Adversity

Adverse, untoward; disastrous, calamitous, ruinous, dire, deplorable.

Evil

Adjective: disastrous, bad; awry, out of joint; disadvantageous.

Inexpedience

Unlucky, sinister; obnoxious; untoward, disastrous.

Pain

Ruinous, disastrous, calamitous, tragical; desolating, withering; burdensome, onerous, oppressive; cumbrous, cumbersome.

Crosswords: Disastrous

Do you realize our army is facing disastrous defeat (Duck Soup; writing credit: Bert Kalmar ; Harry Ruby)

This time, the consequences were disastrous. (Shadow Raiders; writing credit: Christy Marx; Katherine Lawrence)

As usual, marijuana saves an otherwise disastrous day. (Idle Hands; writing credit: Terri Hughes; Ron Milbauer)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Books

• Agony and Death on a Gold Rush Steamer: The Disastrous Sinking of the Side-Wheeler Yankee Blade (reference)

• Boyfriends from Hell: True Tales of Tainted Lovers, Disastrous Dates, and Love Gone Wrong (reference)

• Disastrous Encounter (reference)

• Divorced but Not Disastrous (reference)

• Life After a Disastrous Electronic Medical Record Implementation: One Clinic's Experience [DOWNLOAD: PDF] (reference)

  (more book examples)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

It proved, incontrovertibly, the disastrous effects of machinery and division of labour; the concentration of capital and land in a few hands; overproduction and crises; it pointed out the inevitable ruin of the petty bourgeois and peasant, the misery of the proletariat, the anarchy in production, the crying inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the industrial war of extermination between nations, the dissolution of old moral bonds, of the old family relations, of the old nationalities. (reference)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

This, moreover, is the most disastrous of our social symptoms

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Health

The consequences of hemorrhage are potentially disastrous, leading many clinicians to recommend surgical intervention whenever the physical characteristics of an AVM appear to indicate a greater-than-usual likelihood of significant bleeding and resultant neurological damage. (references)

Business

The results were disastrous. (references)

They fear that a faulty wire coupled with leaky pipes could result in fire hazards which would be disastrous in dry-wall and wood houses, but would have only minor structural effects in brick and mortar or concrete dwellings. (references)

Economic History

Turkey

This process culminated in the disastrous Ottoman participation in World War I as a German ally. (references)

Eritrea

In 1896, the Italians used Eritrea as a springboard for their disastrous attempt to conquer Ethiopia. (references)

Zimbabwe

Though in 1998 the GOZ was successful in efforts to trim back its deficit, 1999 and especially 2000 are disastrous from a sustainable-deficit standpoint. (references)

Political Economy

Korea

Never food self-sufficient, the country relies on international aid and trade to supplement domestic production, which has been hobbled by disastrous agricultural policies. (references)

Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Expressions using "disastrous": disastrous flood ♦ disastrous floods ♦ disastrous policy ♦ take disastrous turn. Additional references.

Ending with "disastrous": near-disastrous, potentially-disastrous.

Albanian

shkatërrimtar (calamitous, crushing, destructive, fatal, internecine, killing, pestilent, pestilential, shattering, slaughterous, suicidal, vandalistic), katastrofik (calamitous, catastrophic). (various references)

Arabic 

‏كارثي, ‏مسبب كارثة (calamitous), ‏مصدوم, ‏مشؤوم (ill-omened, inauspicious, ominous, sinister, unfortunate, unlucky). (various references)

Bulgarian 

катастрофален (catastrophic), гибелен (fatal, fateful, homicidal, pernicious, pestilent, pestilential, suicidal, swart), бедствен (calamitous, dire). (various references)

Chinese 

惨败, 不得了 (desperately serious, exceedingly, extremely). (various references)

Czech

katastrofální (catastrophic, devastating, dire). (various references)

Farsi 

فجیع (Calamitous, Tragic), پربلا (Calamitous), منحوس , مصیبت امیز (Fatal), خطرناک (Calamitous, Dngerous, Grave, Herculean, Ill, Jeopardous, Malignant, Perilous, Serious, Venturesome). (various references)

Finnish

tuhoisa (calamitous, destructive, fatal). (various references)

French

désastreux, sinistre (dire), funeste, catastrophique. (various references)

German

katastrophal (atrocious, calamitous, cataclysmal, catastrophic, catastrophically, disastrously). (various references)

Greek 

καταστρεπτικόσ (calamitous, catastrophic, destructive), καταστροφικός (catastrophic, destructive), ολέθριοσ (baneful, calamitous, noxious, pernicious, pestiferous, ruinous). (various references)

Hebrew 

פורע� י (calamitous, catastrophic), �"ר�" אסון (calamitous, catastrophic, fatal), �"רס� י (calamitous, destructive, internecine, pernicious, ruinous). (various references)

Hungarian

katasztrofális (catastrophic). (various references)

Indonesian

mendatangkan bencana. (various references)

Italian

disastroso (dreadful, fatal, shattering, shocking), rovinoso (devastating, ruinous), catastrofale (cataclysmal, catastrophic). (various references)

Japanese Kanji 

烈震 (disastrous earthquake), 惨状 (disastrous scene, terrible spectacle), 惨たる光景 (disastrous scene), 水�" (disastrous flooding). (various references)

Japanese Katakana 

すいま (disastrous flooding, drowsiness, sleepiness), さ�"たる�"うけい (disastrous scene), さ�"じょう (calling on, cube, disastrous scene, mountain top, terrible spectacle, visiting), れっし�" (disastrous earthquake). (various references)

Korean 

비참한 (Abject, miserable, Wretched). (various references)

Manx

traartyssagh (butcher, butcher of dentist, butchering, desolater, slaughterer). (various references)

Norwegian

ulykksalig, katastrofal. (various references)

Pig Latin

isastrousday.(various references)

Portuguese

desastroso (gauche, ruinous, unchancy), desastrado (awkward, bumbling, butterfinger, fumbling, heavy-handed, left-handed, maladroit), infeliz (devoted, evil, hapless, ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred, inauspicious, infelicitous, jonah, luckless, sorrowful, unblessed, unfortunate, unhappy, unluckily, unlucky, unsuccessful, wretch, wretched). (various references)

Romanian

dezastruos (calamitous, cataclysmal, catastrophic, disastrously, internecine, ruinous), nenorocit (abject, baleful, forlorn, grievous, grub, hapless, lame duck, mean, measly, miser, miserable, pilgarlic, rascal, rotten, sad, scullion, unfortunate, unhappy, wretch, wretched), funest (baneful, calamitous, deadly, fatal, fateful, feral, sinister). (various references)

Russian 

гибельный (baleful, baneful, disastous, pernicious, sinister), бедственный (calamitous, catastrophic, miserable). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian

zlokoban (bodeful, dark, ill-omened, inauspicious, sinister), porazan (calamitous, crushing, overpowering, overwhelming, withering), katastrofalan (catastrophic). (various references)

Spanish

desastroso (calamitous). (various references)

Swedish

olycksbringande (baleful, fatal), katastrofal (calamitous, catastrophic, disasterous), fatal (annoying, fatal, irremeable, unfortunate). (various references)

Turkish

tâlihsiz (cursed, down on one's luck, evil, grief-stricken, hapless, ill fated, ill-omened, ill-starred, inauspicious, infelicitous, star-crossed, unfortunate, unlucky), korkunç (appalling, awesome, awful, cruel, desperate, dire, direful, disgusting, dreadfull, eldritch, fearful, fearsome, formidable, frightening, frightful, ghastly, ghoulish, gory, grim, grisly, gruesome, haircurling, hair-raiser, hellish, hideous, horrendous, horrible, horrid, horrific, lurid, monstrous, redoubtable, scary, shocking, sickening, terrible, terrific, terrifying), felâket getiren (catastrophic, catastrophical, fateful), feci (ghastly, grievous, tragic). (various references)

Ukrainian

нещасний (abject, poor, sinister, unfortunate, wretched), згублений, зловісний (augural, bodeful, dire, fateful, grim, inauspicious, ominous, oracular, oraculous, portentous, sinister, sinistrous, unlucky). (various references)

Vietnamese 

thảm khốc bất hạnh, tai hại (baneful, calamitous, fatal, harm). (various references)

Welsh

trychinebus (calamitous). (various references)

calamitosus. (various references)

Derivations

Words beginning with "disastrous": disastrously. (additional references)

Misspellings

"Disastrous" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Aissatou, desastrous, dicasteries, disasterous, disatrous, distastrous. (additional references)

Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

-1 letter: sarodists.

-2 letters: assistor, auditors, sarodist, sautoirs.

-3 letters: aorists, aristos, assorts, auditor, aurists, sadists, sardius, satoris, sautoir, souaris, strouds, studios, suitors, tsouris, tussars, tussors.

-4 letters: adroit, aorist, aristo, aroids, assist, assort, audios, audits, aurist, douras, droits, odists, radios, radius, ratios, roasts, rousts, sadist, sarods, satori, sistra, sitars, souari, stairs, stasis, stours, strass, stroud, studio, sudors.

+2 letters: disastrously.

+3 letters: dissimulators.

+4 letters: idolatrousness.

+5 letters: subordinateness.