What's the difference between calamity and tragedy?

Calamity


Definition:

  • (n.) Any great misfortune or cause of misery; -- generally applied to events or disasters which produce extensive evil, either to communities or individuals.
  • (n.) A state or time of distress or misfortune; misery.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But if nothing changes, nothing will change, and these calamities will be with us once more.
  • (2) 18) Dallas Cowboys Last season: 8-8 Needs: Offensive line, safety, defensive tackle, running back Pick: Kenny Vaccaro, safety, Texas Tony Romo often carries the can for the Cowboys' offensive calamities, but the truth is that not many quarterbacks look great when they are running for their lives.
  • (3) They did not look like Stoke, exactly, they kept the ball on the floor a bit more than their opponents and did not go backwards quite so much, but in the first half at least there were two sides short of attacking ideas and genuine penetration and for either to score a goal it seemed likely a dead-ball routine or a defensive calamity would have to be involved.
  • (4) QPR appear to be on the verge of calamity at any point in defence.
  • (5) SJ Closs Edinburgh He is the Daffy Duck of politics – confident and self-satisfied, leading to calamity; then he pops up again, unabashed • As a fellow economist I fully endorse Larry Elliott’s demolition of Tory party assertions that all is well for the UK’s growing economy, and that Britain is paying its way ( The Tories’ ticking economic timebomb , 20 April).
  • (6) This system has now been refined to be used prospectively during the management stage of a calamity.
  • (7) Those who backed the wars in Iraq and Libya feel tainted by the bloodshed in the calamities that followed.
  • (8) US and Canadian oil policies, especially the tar sands schemes in Alberta, would increase the chances of global calamities, the imposters told their audience - but reassured them that the industry could keep "fuel flowing" by transforming the billions of people who died into oil.
  • (9) But they should be manageable and worth taking for the wider economic gains, notably averting what might have been an economic calamity.
  • (10) The community's children have been especially vulnerable to these calamities.
  • (11) The 2007 campaign was marked by dirty tricks charges against the Huhne camp by the man he (allegedly) dubbed "Calamity Clegg".
  • (12) I stand to appeal on behalf of the government and the people of Vanuatu that the global community give a lending hand in responding to these very current calamities that have struck us,” he said.
  • (13) The Crystal World is surely Ballard's most gorgeous calamity: apocalypse not as abolition but as transfiguration.
  • (14) By calculating the medical severity index, which is the product of the casualty load and the severity of the incident, and comparing this figure with the available total capacity of the medical services, which is the medical rescue capacity, the medical transport capacity and the hospital treatment capacity, the dispatcher at the control center can fairly quickly and precisely identify if a calamity is to be regarded as a disaster or not and if the region can cope with the situation.
  • (15) In Scotland, meanwhile, Labour has suffered a devastating calamity.
  • (16) But if the political will existed, calamity could be avoided with a fairly modest increase in the budget allocation .
  • (17) The disease that has brought these calamities to the pretty hills of Jinotega, in Nicaragua's central highlands, is new to most of the farmers I meet.
  • (18) Beckett, whose influence on Walsh is palpable, and Pinter would recognise that idea that beneath the surface of everyday life lays a gaping black hole: indeed Pinter from his youth frequently quoted a phrase of Cardinal Newman that creation is a vast "aboriginal calamity".
  • (19) Air brakes that would have prevented the disaster failed because they were powered by an engine that was shut down by firefighters as they dealt with a fire shortly before the calamity occurred, the head of the railway that operated the train said on Monday.
  • (20) The droughts will be far worse than the one in California – or those seen in ancient times, such as the calamity that led to the decline of the Anasazi civilizations in the 13 th century, the researchers said.

Tragedy


Definition:

  • (n.) A dramatic poem, composed in elevated style, representing a signal action performed by some person or persons, and having a fatal issue; that species of drama which represents the sad or terrible phases of character and life.
  • (n.) A fatal and mournful event; any event in which human lives are lost by human violence, more especially by unauthorized violence.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Her story is an incredible tale of triumph over tragedy: a tormented childhood during China's Cultural Revolution, detention and forced exile after exposing female infanticide – then glittering success as the head of a major US technology firm.
  • (2) It is a tragedy that he abandoned Iraq, sacrificing the gains secured by American blood and treasure.
  • (3) The lesson, spelled out by Oak Creek's mayor, Steve Saffidi, was that it shouldn't have taken a tragedy for Sikhs, or anyone else, to find acceptance.
  • (4) Obama is expected to offer personal condolences to his counterpart Park Geun-Hye over the tragedy, but the South's unpredictable northern neighbour is set to dominate the agenda.
  • (5) The Australian prime minister and the Russian president discussed the Malaysia Airlines tragedy during a 15-minute meeting on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit on Tuesday.
  • (6) The second tragedy to strike Jeremy was the death of his wife Caroline.
  • (7) Shavit’s new book, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel , has received plaudits from the cream of the liberal, American, political elite.
  • (8) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Global trade unions called the collapse ‘mass industrial homicide’, while Vogue magazine described it as ‘tragedy on an epic scale’.
  • (9) The deputy prime minister branded the treatment meted out to the four-year-old by his mother, Magdelena Luczak, and stepfather, Mariusz Krezolek, as evil and vile, but suggested it was up to the whole of society to stop such tragedies.
  • (10) Senator Edward Kennedy lived his life precisely at the crossroads of all that he encountered – at the intersection of statesmanship, of history, of moral purpose, of tragedy, of compromise.
  • (11) It’s a huge, huge tragedy.” Kortney Moore, 18, said she was in a writing class when a shot came through the window and hit the teacher in the head.
  • (12) Tragedy was averted because there was a little delay as the prayers did not commence in earnest and the bomb strapped to the body of the girl went off and killed her,” he added.
  • (13) In a therapeutic tragedy perhaps even more widespread than the thalidomide disaster, untold lives were lost between 1949 and 1958 through the administration of inappropriate doses of chloramphenicol to newborn infants.
  • (14) It comes two years after the BSC stripped another Vedanta subsidiary of a safety award after the Observer drew its attention to the firm's involvement in one of the worst industrial tragedies in India's recent history.
  • (15) A s the protests in Turkey continue , spare a thought for the man whose personal tragedy few have the grace to acknowledge – Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
  • (16) During his visit to Europe he did not speak at length on the subject of the shooting, but seemed more willing than Giuliani to distance the Dallas tragedy from the Black Lives Matter movement.
  • (17) But obviously if people have been injured or indeed killed that is a tragedy and our sympathies are with the victims and their families.” He added: “We never condone violence – whatever the cause.
  • (18) Sue Capon, who runs Brokerswood country park, said everyone was still coming to terms with the tragedy.
  • (19) They have taken a series of safety measures over the past decade aimed at preventing crowd crushes after tragedies such as the stampede in 2006, which resulted in 350 deaths, a building collapse in the same year which killed 76 and a stampede that killed more than 200 people in 2004.
  • (20) But the tragedy in Scotland is a reminder that public confidence – and even lives – are on the line too.