TRAGEDIES Synonyms: 74 Similar and Opposite Words

tragedies

noun

plural of tragedy

as in disasters

a sudden violent event that brings about great loss or destruction the earthquake and the ensuing damage was the worst tragedy to ever befall the city

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as in misfortunes

bad luck or an example of this it's the tragedy of many great artists not to be recognized for their genius until after they're dead

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Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of tragedies Those efforts have only intensified following a year in which the NFL community dealt with the tragedies that saw Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland and Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Rondale Moore both take their lives. — Mike Jones, New York Times, 26 Aug. 2026 Elordi is terrific as Hig, a man whose personal tragedies and grief do not erase his belief there is still something out there worth saving despite all the evidence that good no longer exists. — Pete Hammond, Deadline, 25 Aug. 2026 Instead, the tragedies gave greater urgency to a question the students were already asking. — Théoden Janes, Charlotte Observer, 25 Aug. 2026 The absurdities and tragedies of daily life in dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Romania roar from the page in Oana Aristide’s irresistible debut. — Monitor Reviewers, Christian Science Monitor, 21 Aug. 2026 For 94 minutes, Hayden Panettiere and Michelle Trachtenberg are still teenagers whose dreams are ahead of them, adulthood hasn't complicated their lives, and the tragedies that would eventually befall them are nowhere in sight. — Krystie Lee Yandoli, USA Today, 20 Aug. 2026 One of the tragedies of modern MLB ballparks has been losing their iconic features. — Pete Grathoff, Kansas City Star, 19 Aug. 2026 Seemingly disconnected except by my mother’s witness, these two events illustrate how tragedies can galvanize change. — Dr. Marianne Parshley, Hartford Courant, 10 Aug. 2026 There are also now safety measures being proposed along the river to prevent future tragedies. — Andrew Ramos, CBS News, 7 Aug. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for tragedies

Noun

The rescue mission had been suspended earlier due to the fear of secondary disasters caused by the overflowing barrier lake upstream of the town.

— Sophie Tanno, CNN Money, 28 Aug. 2026
Information about major disasters is typically released with a delay and without personal stories of victims.

— Niranjan Shrestha, Chicago Tribune, 28 Aug. 2026

Definition of disasters

Noun

Poliński said Zosia would likely have been blamed for misfortunes such as disease and famine that often plagued the region in the 17th century, which people sometimes attributed to supernatural activity by the dead.

— Katie Hunt, CNN Money, 21 Aug. 2026
But the fire this time was started by a son, which led to raging misfortunes that consumed his three brothers one by one, leaving only ashen memories for his surviving sister and aged parents to sift through.

— Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 6 Aug. 2026

Definition of misfortunes

Noun

That didn’t stop catastrophes like the 2018 fire in the Sierra foothills that destroyed the town of Paradise and killed 85.

— Michael Finnegan, Los Angeles Times, 30 Aug. 2026
Experts warn that catastrophes like this are likely to happen again because rising temperatures in the Himalayas, which are warming faster than the global average, destabilize the region's 60,000 glaciers and trigger more avalanches.

— Brittney Melton, NPR, 27 Aug. 2026

Definition of catastrophes

Noun

To avert future calamities, the forest outside Bordeaux must be thinned and its fire breaks widened, said Arthur Guérin-Turcq, a Sorbonne University geographer whose family cultivates pines near Le Porge.

— Michael Finnegan, Los Angeles Times, 30 Aug. 2026
Indeed, conflict and calamities are major factors in financial repression.

— Jason Ma, Fortune, 23 Aug. 2026

Definition of calamities

Noun

Based on Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth, the surrealist musical follows one nuclear family across thousands of years and three apocalypses.

— Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 10 Dec. 2025
And a lot of the pseudepigrapha, like the fake gospels and fake apocalypses, fill in gaps in the record that can serve latter-day, post-biblical purposes.

— JSTOR Daily, JSTOR Daily, 16 Oct. 2025

Definition of apocalypses

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tragediennes

tragedies

tragedy

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“Tragedies.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tragedies. Accessed 2 Sep. 2026.

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Synonyms of tragedies

noun

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