- very bad, harmful or unsuccessful synonym catastrophic, devastating
- a disastrous harvest/fire/result
- Lowering interest rates could have disastrous consequences for the economy.
- It was a disastrous start to the season for the team.
Extra ExamplesTopics Difficulty and failurec1- This could have equally disastrous consequences.
- The church was rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1824.
- The war ended in 1815 but was followed by a series of disastrous harvests.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryverbs- be
- prove
- become
- …
- absolutely
- completely
- quite
- …
Word Originlate 16th cent. (in the sense ‘ill-fated’): from French désastreux, from Italian disastroso, from disastro ‘disaster’.Definitions on the go
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disastrous