Twenty two years passed. Twenty-two years of excellent health and the boundless self-assurance that flows from being fit—twenty-two years spared the adversary that is illness and the calamity that waits in the wings.—Phillip Roth, Everyman, 2006A resentment born of the suspicion that all along the media were up to their usual tricks, hyping a national calamity to the max in order to make us buy more copies and tune into TV specials …—Christopher Buckley, Time, 29 Nov. 1999In the wake of this year's unending calamities, there has been renewed discussion of the need for an international rapid deployment force that can kick down doors to help victims of disasters.—Kathleen Hunt, New York Times Magazine, 28 July 1991
floods, earthquakes, and other calamities
He predicted calamity for the economy.
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That sum builds on amounts given after other recent calamities, including the 2023 Maui fires and last year’s hurricanes in the Southeast.—Tori Latham, Robb Report, 15 June 2025 May 27, 2025 1:45 PM PT Myriad calamities could hit the city of Los Angeles in coming years: Wildfires.—Matt Hamilton, Los Angeles Times, 27 May 2025 There was quality dappled with calamity as United hunted City’s back line and haunted goalkeeper Khiara Keating with their aggressive press.—Michael Cox, New York Times, 14 May 2025 Instead, Chernow devotes a hefty portion of his 1,039 pages (excluding notes) to Twain’s personal tribulations, a depressing series of bungles and calamities starting in the author’s middle age.—Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, 9 May 2025 See All Example Sentences for calamity
Word History
Etymology
Middle English calamytey, borrowed from Middle French & Latin; Middle French calamité, borrowed from Latin calamitāt-, calamitās "disaster, misfortune, military defeat," going back to an unattested adjective *calamo- or *calami-, presumably, "injured, affected by misfortune or defeat" + -tāt-, -tās -TY; *calamo-/*calami- perhaps going back to Indo-European *kl̥h2-em-o/i-, adjective derivative from a verbal base *kelh2- "hit, strike" — more at clastic
Note:
Later Roman writers associated calamitās by folk etymology with calamus "reed, cane," taking it to literally mean "plague affecting crops." A negated form of the Latin adjective underlying calamitās can be seen in the word incolumis "unharmed, safe and sound, undamaged," going back to *enkalamis. (The second -a- was presumably weakened to -i- and then backed and rounded to -u- before a labial consonant, with the first -a-, now in the second syllable, reducing and rounding to -o- before velar l.) Initial -aCa- in calamitās, rather than -aCi- by vowel weakening, is most likely the result of the so-called alacer rule, by which a short vowel in an open medial syllable retains its quality if it is identical to the vowel of the initial syllable (the word alacer "brisk, lively" exemplifying the rule—compare allegro entry 2).
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