Origin Story
Disaster comes from the Italian disastro: dis- ("bad, contrary") + astro ("star") — literally "an ill star." From antiquity through the Renaissance, astrology was treated as a serious science, and people believed the arrangement of the stars governed human destiny. When the planets stood in unlucky positions, it was thought to bring war, famine, and plague; the conjunction of Saturn and Mars in particular was regarded as the most ominous of all. A terrible event occurring under such an "ill-starred" influence was a disastro, which passed through French desastre into English as disaster. Shakespeare, too, gave us the phrase "star-crossed."
A word of kindred origin is influenza ("influence") — epidemics were once blamed on the "influence of the stars" (influenza delle stelle). We explore it in detail in entry #29.
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Oxford English Dictionarydisaster: from Italian disastro "ill-starred event," from dis- (pejorative) + astro "star," from Latin astrum, from Greek astron
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Online Etymology Dictionarydisaster (n.): 1590s, from French desastre, from Italian disastro, literally "an unfavorable aspect of a star"
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Merriam-Webster DictionaryMiddle French & Italian: desastre, disastro, from dis- + astro "star" — reflecting the belief that stars controlled earthly events
Word Evolution
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Words from the Same Root
Memory Hook
disaster = dis ("bad") + aster ("star"). Born under a "bad star," and catastrophe follows! Think of the aster in asterisk — a star.
""In an age that blamed the stars for catastrophe, the belief survives in the very word.""
