Literally “ill-starred,” with an astrological sense.
A ruinous or deeply unfortunate event.
A calamity — with the stars mostly forgotten.
The word for catastrophe once pointed to the stars and the idea of bad fortune.
Look up, not down
English disaster comes through French désastre from Italian disastro. Its components express something like “ill-starred”: a negative prefix and astro, meaning star or planet.
Why stars meant trouble
In astrology, the positions of celestial bodies were thought to influence human affairs. To be born under a bad star was to be unlucky. The word disaster grew from that framework of misfortune and fate, not from the modern scientific study of astronomy.
A late-sixteenth-century arrival
The English noun is recorded from the 1590s for a ruinous or distressing event. As the word settled into English, the literal connection to astrology faded, while the sense of calamity remained.
A family resemblance
The astr- element also appears in words such as astral, astronomy and astronaut. Those words have different histories and uses, but they share the ancient star-related root. In disaster, the star has become almost invisible.
Does disaster mean that stars really cause catastrophes?
No. Its history records an old belief about fate and celestial influence; it is not evidence that planetary positions cause misfortunes.
Check the evidence
Dates are approximate and reflect recorded evidence, not the moment a word was first spoken. Read our research approach.
Editorial review: October 2026. Report a correction.