apocalypse

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See also: Apocalypse

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Etymology

From Middle English apocalips, from Latin apocalypsis, from Ancient Greek ἀποκάλυψις (apokálupsis, revelation, literally uncovering), from ἀπό (apó, back, away from) and καλύπτω (kalúptō, I cover). The sense evolution to "catastrophe, end of the world" stems from the depiction of such events in the biblical Book of Revelation, also called the Apocalypse of (i.e. Revelation to) John.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /əˈpɒkəlɪps/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)
  • (US) IPA(key): /əˈpɑkəlɪps/
  • Hyphenation: a‧poc‧a‧lypse

Noun

apocalypse (plural apocalypses)

  1. A revealing, especially a prophecy of, or the unfolding of, supernatural events.
    Synonym: revelation
    The early development of Perl 6 was punctuated by a series of apocalypses by Larry Wall.
  2. A huge disaster; a cataclysmic event; destruction or ruin of large scope and scale.
    Hyponyms: eco-apocalypse, snowpocalypse, retail apocalypse, replyallpocalypse; zombie apocalypse, zombocalypse; nuclear winter, volcanic winter
    Near-synonyms: cataclysm, catastrophe, holocaust; armageddon, doomsday, end times, eschaton, judgement day, judgment day
    A nuclear apocalypse would have been possible if tensions went out of control during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
    • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 180:
      Man has forgotten the soul and thus doomed his civilization to apocalypse.
    • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 699:
      The Spanish mission in America soon became not so much crusade as apocalypse.
    • 2025 January 10, Peter Thiel, quoting Barack Obama, “A time for truth and reconciliation”, in Financial Times:
      In 2016, President Barack Obama told his staff that Donald Trump’s election victory was “not the apocalypse”. By any definition, he was correct. But understood in the original sense of the Greek word apokálypsis, meaning “unveiling”, Obama could not give the same reassurance in 2025.
  3. (Christianity) The unveiling of events prophesied in the Revelation; the second coming and the end of life on Earth; global destruction.
    Alternative form: Apocalypse
    Synonyms: armageddon, doomsday, end times, eschaton
    Meronyms: Final Judgment, Judgment Day, judgement day, judgment day
    Near-synonym: Ragnarok
  4. (Christianity) The Book of Revelation.
    Alternative form: Apocalypse
    Synonym: Revelation

Derived terms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

References

French

French Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia fr

Etymology

From Latin apocalypsis, from Ancient Greek ἀποκάλυψις (apokálupsis).

Pronunciation

Noun

apocalypse f (plural apocalypses)

  1. apocalypse (disaster)

Further reading

Latin

Noun

apocalypse

  1. ablative singular of apocalypsis