Catastrophe

Catastrophe may mean:

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• A disaster, sometimes used to mean an unusually severe disaster. (Most common meaning.)
• In ancient Greek tragedies, the solution of the plot.
• In the field of sociology it is defined as social change of an outstanding radical and rapid character, with highly magical explanations by victims and others.

Related phrases:

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• As a technical and a computer-related term, "catastrophic failure" usually refers to a failure within a system which leads to failure of the system as a whole.
• In mathematics, catastrophe theory studies how the behaviour of dynamical systems can change drastically with variations in certain parameters.