Apocalyptic

How to spell apocalyptic

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce apocalyptic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does apocalyptic mean?

1. adjectiveDescribing devastation or destruction on a vast, world-ending scale.
2. adjectiveRelating to prophecy or revelation, especially the biblical visions of the end of the world.

Apocalyptic in a sentence

• The flooded streets and abandoned cars gave the city an apocalyptic feel.

• The lecture examined the apocalyptic imagery in the Book of Revelation.

• The report painted an apocalyptic picture of what unchecked drought could do to the region.

• Her thesis traced apocalyptic literature from ancient Jewish texts onward.

Where does apocalyptic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek apokalupsis, meaning an 'uncovering' or 'revealing', built from apo- 'away, un-' and kaluptein 'to cover'. In other words, an apocalypse was literally a pulling back of the veil to disclose something hidden. The term gained its dramatic weight from the final book of the Christian New Testament, known in Greek as the Apokalypsis (the Book of Revelation), which described visions of the end of the world. Latin took it as apocalypticus, and English adopted the adjective by the seventeenth century. Over time the everyday sense drifted from 'revelatory' toward 'catastrophic', because the visions being revealed were so often of cataclysm and destruction. The tricky spelling comes straight from that buried Greek kaluptein root, which is why the middle is '-calyp-' with a single 'l' and a 'y'.

How the word is built

• apo- (away, un-)
• kalyp (from Greek kalyptein: to cover)
• -tic (adjective suffix)