act of God
19
6.8
- noun
- /ækt əv ɡɑd/
- Specialized
:
fuerza mayor
- Moreover, weather and disasters are generally understood as natural phenomena not controlled by humans but instead as "acts of God."
Examples
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It's an act of God.
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There are things you can't fight, acts of God.
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This is an act of God.
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This was an act of God.
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If something goes wrong, we blame an act of nature or an act of God.
Blog text (34) -
Only an act of God can save us from what is on the horizon.
Blog text (12) -
It was an act of God.
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The only people who still call hurricanes acts of God are the people who write insurance forms.
Blog text (14) -
It made sense for a lot of people to interpret natural phenomena as acts of God.
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Many homeowners seek insurance coverage for damages resulting from an act of God like a hurricane.
Synonyms
4
9.8
A large unexpected event like a natural disaster or war that prevents someone from fulfilling a contract
A strong natural event like an earthquake or flood that you cannot stop and that stops normal life
An unexpected event you cannot stop even with great care
Antonyms
How Preventable
Surface Forms
Morphology
A learner who knows 'act' (an action) and 'God' will likely infer this refers to an action attributed to a divine force and thus something beyond human control, so there is a visible compositional link. However, the specific legal/insurance sense — that it labels natural events (floods, earthquakes) as unforeseeable and exculpatory — is a conventionalized, register-specific meaning not fully predictable from the parts, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Act of God comes from old religious ideas: people long ago called terrible natural events like floods or earthquakes 'acts of God' because they seemed caused by a higher power, not by people. That's why today, in contracts and insurance, an act of God means a natural event that is 'outside human control'.