Catastrophe /(?)/

Ca·tas·tro·phe

Catastrophe

n.
  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.
    The most horrible and portentous catastrophe that nature ever yet saw.
  2. The final event in a romance or a dramatic piece; a denouement, as a death in a tragedy, or a marriage in a comedy.
  3. 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. (Geol.)