Definition of "calamity"
calamity
noun
plural calamities
An event resulting in great loss.
Quotations
Romeo come forth / Come forth thou fearfull man, / Affliction is enamor’d of thy parts: / And thou art wedded to calamitie.
c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene iii], page 67, column 2
Yet, at that moment, she felt as if the acquisition of these gems were a calamity. Their possession involved separation from her uncle, from every relic of home affections, and from all that yet lingered with her of her childhood.
1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Age and Youth”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 15
And the village was deserted, the huts gaped black, rotting, all askew within the fallen enclosures. A calamity had come to it, sure enough.
1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], part I, page 199