A catastrophe is an extremely large-scale disaster, a horrible event.
The term may also refer to:
- Catastrophe (book), a non-fiction book by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
- Catastrophe (drama), the climax and resolution of a plot in ancient Greek drama and poetry
- Catastrophe, the main antagonist in The Secret Files of the Spy Dogs
- Catastrophe (play), a 1982 short play by Samuel Beckett
- Catastrophe (TV series), a five-part science series on Channel 4
- The (Asia Minor) Catastrophe, a Greek name for the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey
- Catastrophic failure, complete failure of a system from which recovery is impossible (e.g. a bridge collapses)
- Catastrophic (band), rock band featuring Trevor Peres
Famous quotes containing the word catastrophe:
“Perhaps catastrophe is the natural human environment, and even though we spend a good deal of energy trying to get away from it, we are programmed for survival amid catastrophe.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“Oh, what a catastrophe for man when he cut himself off from the rhythm of the year, from his unison with the sun and the earth. Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was a personal, merely personal feeling, taken away from the rising and the setting of the sun, and cut off from the magic connection of the solstice and the equinox!”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“It is not women’s fault if we are so tender. It is in the nature of the lives we live. And further, it would be a terrible catastrophe if men had to live men’s lives and women’s also. Which is precisely what has happened today—to women.”
—Selma James (b. 1930)