How to Use cataclysm in a Sentence

cataclysm

noun
  • The country barely survived the cataclysm of war.
  • The revolution could result in worldwide cataclysm.
  • The first is the P/E based on what the big-caps were earning before the cataclysm.
    Shawn Tully, Fortune, 8 Feb. 2021
  • That's a faster fall than stocks saw in the financial crisis or even the cataclysm of 1929.
    TheWeek, 28 Mar. 2020
  • Nineteen sixty-eight was a year of cataclysms in the United States and the Western world.
    Herbert W. Strupp, National Review, 5 Oct. 2019
  • The ban on live music has been a cataclysm for the wedding performers such as those who taught at the Ghos al Din.
    Los Angeles Times, 24 Sep. 2021
  • But the bottom line is that climate science, and the cataclysm of climate change, has lurched into the present tense.
    Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, 9 Aug. 2021
  • The latest numbers show the cataclysm is spreading to all parts of the economy.
    Mike Rogoway | The Oregonian/oregonlive, oregonlive, 9 Apr. 2020
  • But part of the charm of this book is Paustovsky’s inveterate lyricism in the face of cataclysm.
    Sophie Pinkham, Washington Post, 10 Feb. 2023
  • The goal is to understand how ferns were able to bounce back from the cataclysm that killed the dinosaurs and the majority of living species at the time.
    Julia Carmel, Los Angeles Times, 1 June 2023
  • Once launched off the rails of conformity, Jane is a walking cataclysm.
    Washington Post, 6 Apr. 2021
  • Murphy plays this cataclysm with an all-too-genuine rue and fear.
    Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 3 Dec. 2023
  • Help didn’t come in 2008, but then came the pandemic — truly a once-in-a-lifetime cataclysm.
    Los Angeles Times, 6 May 2021
  • The age of mass protest ushered in by the Arab Spring is hardly over, but the record of failures, setbacks, and cataclysms has been dispiriting.
    Osita Nwanevu, The New Republic, 20 Sep. 2023
  • Even when a cataclysm occurs, and the life of one of Amy’s family members is at stake, the movie keeps us supremely aware of the logistics of the phone.
    Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 13 Sep. 2021
  • The year was 1917, and a proud American tradition was born out of cataclysm.
    Staff Report, Houston Chronicle, 6 Sep. 2019
  • The cataclysm of 9/11 changes everything for Dana and Charles, but the film doesn’t just culminate in what happens to him in combat.
    Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 19 Dec. 2021
  • The cataclysm of the past 15 months or more calls everything into question.
    Washington Post, 10 June 2021
  • The two go missing for three days, a cataclysm that causes ripples of fear and discord in their small Georgia town.
    Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 4 Oct. 2023
  • But Levy lingers too long on Facebook’s early years before getting to the cataclysms.
    Christina Passariello, Washington Post, 28 Feb. 2020
  • The risk of such a cataclysm exists only when Earth is situated exactly along the line of the burst.
    Peter Tuthill, Scientific American, 15 Aug. 2023
  • This is the first national election since the cataclysm of 2020 when Trump refused to admit defeat and tried to stay in power.
    Stephen Collinson, CNN, 7 Nov. 2022
  • Fogerty wrote all three of them right around the original Earth Day, and each one works weather metaphors almost too on-the-nose for the climate-change cataclysm at hand.
    David Cantwell, The New Yorker, 17 Aug. 2022
  • Artist Tony Oursler, amid a number of projects in his own studio, seems unaffected by the cataclysm.
    Roger Catlin, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 May 2020
  • There is the Chicago Bears team that lost six straight — including last week’s cataclysm against Detroit.
    Chicago Tribune Staff, chicagotribune.com, 13 Dec. 2020
  • The numbers provided only the first hint of the economic cataclysm in progress.
    Ben Casselman, New York Times, 26 Mar. 2020
  • Those who saw cataclysm in the auroral display were not exactly wrong: just ahead of their time.
    The Economist, 25 June 2020
  • But the film opens with a (contrived) cataclysm that nudges her into secretly going ahead with it.
    Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 4 Jan. 2023
  • Just about every fish on the planet would be forced to confront the cataclysm while mourning at least one beloved bicycle.
    Judy Berman, Time, 8 Sep. 2021
  • World War II comparisons are a dime a dozen these days, but a different cataclysm of the 1940s is more instructive.
    Walter Shapiro, The New Republic, 18 Feb. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cataclysm.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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