Open Notes

More amazing stuff from the dictionary. I never thought that catastrophe referred to overtuning something, or even that it is the final event in a romance or drama.

Ca-tas′tro-phe, noun [L. catastropha, Gr. �, fr. � to turn up and down, to overturn; κατά down + � to turn.] 1. An event producing a subversion of the order or system of things; a final event, usually of a calamitous or disastrous nature; hence, sudden calamity; great misfortune. The strange catastrophe of affairs now at London. Bp. Burnet.

The most horrible and portentous catastrophe that nature ever yet saw. Woodward.

  1. The final event in a romance or a dramatic piece; a denouement, as a death in a tragedy, or a marriage in a comedy.
  2. (Geol.) A violent and widely extended change in the surface of the earth, as, an elevation or subsidence of some part of it, effected by internal causes. Whewell.