noun
- a calamitous event, especially one occurring suddenly and causing great loss of life, damage, or hardship, as a flood, airplane crash, or business failure.
- Obsolete. an unfavorable aspect of a star or planet.
noun
- an occurrence that causes great distress or destruction
- a thing, project, etc, that fails or has been ruined
1590s, from Middle French désastre (1560s), from Italian disastro “ill-starred,” from dis-, here merely pejorative (see dis-) + astro “star, planet,” from Latin astrum, from Greek astron (see star (n.)). The sense is astrological, of a calamity blamed on an unfavorable position of a planet.