Ca*tas"tro*phe (?), n. [L. catastropha, Gr. , fr. to turn up and down, to overturn; down + to turn.]

1.

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.

The strange catastrophe of affairs now at London. Bp. Buret.

The most horrible and portentous catastrophe that nature ever yet saw. Woodward.

2.

The final event in a romance or a dramatic piece; a denouement, as a death in a tragedy, or a marriage in a comedy.

3. Geol.

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.

Whewell.

 

© Webster 1913.

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