untergangn.
/ˈʊntərɡaŋ/ An irreversible decline, esp. leading to the destruction of culture or civilization.
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > adversity > [noun] > fall from prosperous or thriving condition > irreversible
untergang1938
1938 L. MacNeice I crossed Minch ix. 133 The Untergang, the collapse of civilisation.
1962 Listener 12 July 51/2 There were times when Zarathustra—and, I believe, Nietzsche himself—longed for the Untergang, the going down, the descent, among the many, for the many, into death.
1965 New Statesman 30 July 166/1 The rooms and houses seemed on a depressingly small scale for a civilisation which it had always pleased me to think of as suffering the disease of gigantism which afflicts societies in full untergang.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1986; most recently modified version published online June 2018).
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n.1938