disastrous

adjective

di·​sas·​trous di-ˈza-strəs 

 also  -ˈsa-

1

: attended by or causing suffering or disaster : calamitous

a disastrous flood

2

: terrible, horrendous

a disastrous score

disastrously adverb

Synonyms

• calamitous
• cataclysmal
• cataclysmic
• catastrophic
• damning
• destructive
• fatal
• fateful
• ruinous
• unfortunate

Examples of disastrous in a Sentence

Half the city was destroyed by a disastrous fire.

The bad weather could have a disastrous effect on the area's tourism industry.

His failure to back up the computer files had disastrous consequences.

The strike was economically disastrous.

Recent Examples on the Web

Skipping this governance checkpoint essentially means letting people create powerful and untested tools for decision making, which could be disastrous to an organization’s future success. —Larry English, Forbes.com, 26 June 2025

Trading away Jokic would be disastrous, and the thought of it is just as bad. —Ricardo Klein, MSNBC Newsweek, 24 June 2025

With this, Norman bridges the gap between traditional estate planning with lawyers and the disastrous option of doing nothing at all. —Connie Etemadi, USA Today, 23 June 2025

Trading him over the summer, or (worse) losing him to an offer sheet, would be disastrous. —Allan Mitchell, New York Times, 20 June 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1594, in the meaning defined at sense 1