List of 426 Sets of Synonyms - How they Differ - Total of 2307 Words - 119

SYNONYMS: disaster, calamity, catastrophe, cataclysm.
These nouns refer to an event having fatal or ruinous results.

Disaster generally implies great destruction, hardship, or loss of life: A nuclear disaster, spread by winds and waters and fear, could well engulf the whole world.
Calamity emphasizes distress, grief, or the sense of loss: The heaviest calamity in English history was the breach with America.
Catastrophe especially stresses the sense of a tragic final outcome: The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything and we drift toward unparalleled catastrophes.
A cataclysm is a violent upheaval that brings about a fundamental change: old aristocratic institutions destroyed by the revolutionary cataclysm.