disastrous

Etymology

Most dictionaries take it as borrowed from Middle French desastreux (now spelled désastreux), from Italian disastroso (“ill-starred”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from disastro (“disaster”), the source of disaster.^[2][4][5] The OED's revised entry instead analyses it as formed in English from the noun and -ous, modelled on the French word, which is recorded in 1557 meaning "unfortunate" and in 1571 meaning "very harmful", itself after the Italian.^[7] Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com name both French and Italian as sources.^[2][8] The Italian noun is formed from dis-, here a pejorative prefix, and astro (“star”), from Latin astrum, from Ancient Greek ἄστρον (ástron, “star”); its sense is astrological, a misfortune blamed on an unlucky star.^[6] Compare Spanish desastroso.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Ill-fated, unlucky: 1586, in Pettie and Yong's translation of Guazzo's Civile Conuersation.^[7][2] Etymonline dates it to the 1580s.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The first sense followed the astrological idea of an unlucky star.^[6] From 1598 the word could also mean ill-omened, foretelling disaster, a sense now archaic;^[7][2] Johnson (1755) illustrated it with Milton's "disastrous twilight", defining it as gloomy and threatening misfortune.^[9] The modern sense, causing great harm or ruin, is recorded from 1601,^[7] about 1600 in Etymonline,^[6] and gradually replaced the old one, which the OED last records in 1888 and the Shorter Oxford in the early 19th century.^[7][4] From 1837 it was also used of something highly unsuccessful,^[7] and Merriam-Webster records the weaker sense "extremely bad, terrible".^[2]

Timeline

• 1586 – ill-fated, unlucky (now obsolete).^[7][2]
• 1598 – ill-omened, foretelling disaster.^[7]
• 1601 – causing great harm or ruin; calamitous.^[7]
• 1837 – highly unsuccessful.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Causing great damage, suffering or ruin; calamitous: a disastrous flood.^[2][7]
2. Very unsuccessful, or extremely bad: The team had a disastrous season.^[2][7]
3. (archaic) Ominous; threatening misfortune.^[2][7][9]
4. (obsolete, 1586–1888) Unlucky; ill-fated.^[7][4][9]

Word family

• disastrously
• disastrousness
• nondisastrous
• undisastrous

Related words

• disaster
• astral
• ill-starred

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.