Cataclysmal

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. A sudden, violent, and overwhelming event or change that causes massive destruction or upheaval
2. of or relating to a sudden, violent, and devastating event that produces catastrophic change or destruction
3. characterized by or resulting from an abrupt, violent upheaval or disaster of enormous magnitude and consequences

Etymology: Cataclysmal is a plain formation: the adjective "cataclysm" with the suffix "-al" added to make an adjective. The noun itself comes from Greek "kataklysmos", meaning a flood or deluge, built from "kata" ("down") and "klyzein" ("to wash"). Its literal sense was therefore a great washing-down of water, which is still visible in the flood imagery that the noun carries when people speak of the Biblical Flood as a cataclysm. The suffix has a longer ancestry than the noun. The ending "-al" passed from Latin "-alis" into Old French and then into Middle English, and English has used it for centuries to turn nouns into adjectives such as "national" or "musical." Attaching it to "cataclysm" produced a word meaning "of or relating to a cataclysm," and the adjective later took on the broader sense of a disaster that is sudden, violent and widespread.

Synonyms: disastrous, catastrophic

Antonyms: beneficial, advantageous