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# catastrophic

«catastrophic» in Mova's school dictionary: **causing terrible damage, harm or suffering; a disaster** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

adjective (catastrophic, more catastrophic)

### meaning for a pupil

1) Catastrophic means causing terrible damage, harm or suffering; a disaster. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/catastrophic/#m1)

2) Catastrophic is also used for something very bad or a total failure, sometimes with a joking tone. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/catastrophic/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In geography and science: catastrophic floods, earthquakes, fires and storms; a catastrophic asteroid hit may have ended the dinosaurs. In news and history: catastrophic events and failures. In everyday life people say «catastrophic» to exaggerate («My cake was catastrophic!»).

### examples

- The flood was catastrophic for the town. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/catastrophic/#x1)
- A catastrophic fire destroyed the forest. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/catastrophic/#x2)
- Losing the map would be catastrophic for the explorers. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/catastrophic/#x3)
- My first try at baking bread was catastrophic! [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/catastrophic/#x4)
- Scientists warn that some storms can be catastrophic. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/catastrophic/#x5)
- The bridge suffered catastrophic damage in the earthquake. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/catastrophic/#x6)

### note

Noun: catastrophe (pronounced «ka-TAS-tro-fee», four syllables). Adverb: catastrophically. Stronger than «bad» or «serious»; similar to «disastrous». Use it carefully: it means very great harm.

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «catastrophic» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/catastrophic/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.