Catastrophe(n.) An event producing a subversion of the order or system of things; a final event, usually of a calamitous or disastrous nature; hence, sudden calamity; great misfortune.
Catastrophe(n.) The final event in a romance or a dramatic piece; a denouement, as a death in a tragedy, or a marriage in a comedy.
Catastrophe(n.) A violent and widely extended change in the surface of the earth, as, an elevation or subsidence of some part of it, effected by internal causes.
Catastrophic(a.) Of a pertaining to a catastrophe.
Catastrophism(n.) The doctrine that the geological changes in the earth's crust have been caused by the sudden action of violent physical causes; -- opposed to the doctrine of uniformism.
Words within catastrophism