Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
No pronunciation record was provided for this word.
noun
The doctrine that sudden catastrophes, rather than continuous change, cause the main features of the Earth's crust.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: countable, uncountable
Topics: geography, geology, natural-sciences
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: uniformitarianism
noun
The doctrine that, in addition to the more gradual effects of evolution, huge catastrophic events shape the earth's flora and fauna by causing major die-offs which make way for the emergence of new organisms.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: countable, uncountable
Topics: biology, natural-sciences
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
The practice or tendency of catastrophizing, regarding bad things as catastrophic.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: countable, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
From catastrophe + -ism, coined by English polymath William Whewell in 1837.
