calamities

noundisaster; tragedy

Synonyms for calamities

noun disaster; tragedy

Antonyms for calamities

Word Origin & History

early 15c., from Middle French calamite (14c.), from Latin calamitatem (nominative calamitas) "damage, loss, failure; disaster, misfortune, adversity," origin obscure. Early etymologists associated it with calamus "straw" (see shawm); but it is perhaps from a lost root preserved in incolumis "uninjured," from PIE *kle-mo-, from base *kel- "to strike, cut" (see hilt).

Example Sentences for calamities

All their calamities, except the plague, were the foreseen results of their own decision.

Others have been saved before now from calamities yet deeper than ours.

Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

Our forefathers had their own ways of accounting for each of these calamities.

The calamities that lie in ambush for us are ever present to our thoughts.

From this one theme have arisen, most, if not all, the calamities of the country.

From the hour he walked out of the circus our calamities began.

I wish I could dare to hope that this was to be the end of the calamities.

Why do we find the present calamities of war charged to economic causes?

His life 'is an Iliad of calamities, a chain of misfortunes.