- Today's Word
Calamity
[kuh-LAM-i-tee]
Definition
- (noun) A great misfortune or catastrophe; an event that brings terrible loss, distress, or misery. As a noun, it refers to any disastrous event that causes extensive damage or hardship, whether personal or widespread.
Example
The great fire of 1871 was a calamity that left much of Chicago in ruins, but ultimately led to the city’s remarkable architectural rebirth.
Fun Fact
The word “calamity” derives from the Latin “calamitas,” which originally referred to damage to crops, possibly stemming from an ancient farming term meaning “destruction of stalks.” Medieval Latin scholars connected it to “calamus” meaning “reed” or “stalk,” though modern etymologists debate this connection. During the Middle Ages, the word evolved beyond agricultural usage to describe any disastrous event. The term gained particular prominence in the American Old West with the nickname of Martha Jane Cannary, better known as “Calamity Jane,” a famous frontierswoman who claimed she got her nickname because she warned men that to offend her was to court calamity.
(adjective) Lacking substance, interest, or mature thought; naive and simplistic in a way that reveals inexperience.
The critic dismissed the debut novel as jejune — competently written, technically adequate, and utterly devoid of anything worth remembering.
Jejune derives from the Latin jejunus, meaning “fasting” or “empty” — literally describing a stomach that has not been fed. The same root gives us jejunum, the section of the small intestine named for its tendency to be found empty after death. It entered English in the 17th century carrying its literal sense of emptiness before acquiring its figurative meaning of something intellectually or creatively hollow — content that has the form of nourishment without any of the substance.