a calamitous event, especially one occurring suddenly and causing great loss of life, damage, or hardship, as a flood, airplane crash, or business failure.
Obsolete. an unfavorable aspect of a star or planet.
Origin of disaster
1585–95; <Middle French desastre<Italian disastro, equivalent to dis-dis-1 + astro star <Latin astrum<Greek ástron
1. Disaster,calamity,catastrophe,cataclysm refer to adverse happenings often occurring suddenly and unexpectedly. A disaster may be caused by carelessness, negligence, bad judgment, or the like, or by natural forces, as a hurricane or flood: a railroad disaster.Calamity suggests great affliction, either personal or general; the emphasis is on the grief or sorrow caused: the calamity of losing a child.Catastrophe refers especially to the tragic outcome of a personal or public situation; the emphasis is on the destruction or irreplaceable loss: the catastrophe of a defeat in battle.Cataclysm, physically an earth-shaking change, refers to a personal or public upheaval of unparalleled violence: a cataclysm that turned his life in a new direction.
The rudeness of the general, however, proved not so very great a disaster to Catherine.
The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I|Various
The campaign opened, if not in disaster, at least with only partial success.
The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte|William Milligan Sloane
British Dictionary definitions for disaster
disaster
/ (dɪˈzɑːstə) /
noun
an occurrence that causes great distress or destruction
a thing, project, etc, that fails or has been ruined
Derived forms of disaster
disastrous, adjective
Word Origin for disaster
C16 (originally in the sense: malevolent astral influence): from Italian disastro, from dis- (pejorative) + astro star, from Latin astrum, from Greek astron