the Great Calamity
- proper noun
:
la Gran Hambruna
- During the Great Calamity, entire villages were depopulated as people fled or starved.
Examples
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Many families trace their American roots back to ancestors who left Ireland during the Great Calamity.
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Historians continue to study the impact of the Great Calamity on Irish society and culture.
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During the Great Calamity, Ireland faced immense suffering.
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Many families were affected by the Great Calamity of the 1840s.
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During the Great Calamity, entire villages were depopulated as people fled or starved.
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Historians continue to study the impact of the Great Calamity on Irish society and culture.
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Many families trace their American roots back to ancestors who left Ireland during the Great Calamity.
Synonyms
8
4.2
A great lack of something needed, like food or medicine
1
6.1
A time in Ireland from 1845 to 1852 when a potato disease made many people starve and leave the country
A famine in Ireland from 1846 to 1851 caused by a potato disease that forced many people to leave
A period of mass hunger in Ireland from 1846 to 1851 that causes many people to leave
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase transparently combines 'great' (very large/important) and 'calamity' (a disaster), so a B1 learner who knows those words will understand it denotes a major catastrophe. However, the specific historical reference to the mid-19th-century Irish famine (its dates, causes, and national context) requires cultural/historical knowledge beyond the literal composition, making the expression only partially transparent.
Etymology
The name the Great Calamity came from how people saw the potato famine: fields of rotting potatoes and empty houses as families died or left the country. Because the hunger caused so much death and loss, people called that time 'a great disaster', and the name now refers to the famine of 1846–1851.