calamitous

calamitous
    adj 1: (of events) having extremely unfortunate or dire
           consequences; bringing ruin; "the stock market crashed on
           Black Friday"; "a calamitous defeat"; "the battle was a
           disastrous end to a disastrous campaign"; "such
           doctrines, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my
           theory"- Charles Darwin; "it is fatal to enter any war
           without the will to win it"- Douglas MacArthur; "a
           fateful error" [syn: {black}, {calamitous}, {disastrous},
           {fatal}, {fateful}]
    

Calamitous \Ca*lam"i*tous\, a. [L. Calamitosus; cf. F.
   calamiteux.]
   [1913 Webster]
   1. Suffering calamity; wretched; miserable. [Obs.]
      [1913 Webster]

            Ten thousands of calamitous persons.  --South.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Producing, or attended with distress and misery; making
      wretched; wretched; unhappy. "This sad and calamitous
      condition." --South. "A calamitous prison" --Milton.

   Syn: Miserable; deplorable; distressful; afflictive;
        wretched; grievous; baleful; disastrous; adverse;
        unhappy; severe; sad; unfortunate. --
        {Ca*lam"i*tous*ly}, adv. -- {Ca*lam"i*tous*ness}, n.
        [1913 Webster]
    

52 Moby Thesaurus words for "calamitous":
      afflictive, awful, baneful, black, cataclysmal, cataclysmic,
      catastrophic, consuming, consumptive, deadly, demolishing,
      demolitionary, depredatory, desolating, destroying, destructive,
      devastating, dire, disastrous, distressful, distressing, doomful,
      dreadful, fatal, fateful, fratricidal, grievous, heartbreaking,
      internecine, lamentable, nihilist, nihilistic, pernicious,
      ravaging, regrettable, ruining, ruinous, self-destructive,
      subversionary, subversive, suicidal, terrible, tragic, unfortunate,
      vandalic, vandalish, vandalistic, wasteful, wasting, withering,
      woeful, wreckful