apocalypse

From Middle English apocalips, from Latin apocalypsis, from Ancient Greek ἀποκάλυψις (apokálupsis, “revelation”, literally “uncovering”), from ἀπό (apó, “back, away from”) and καλύπτω (kalúptō, “I cover”). The sense evolution to "catastrophe, end of the world" stems from the depiction of such events in the biblical Book of Revelation, also called the Apocalypse of (i.e. Revelation to) John.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /əˈpɒkəlɪps/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /əˈpɑkəlɪps/
• Hyphenation: a‧poc‧a‧lypse

apocalypse (plural apocalypses)

1. A revealing, especially a prophecy of, or the unfolding of, supernatural events. [from 14th c.]

   Synonym: revelation

   The early development of Perl 6 was punctuated by a series of apocalypses by Larry Wall.

2. A huge disaster; a cataclysmic event; destruction or ruin of large scope and scale. [from 19th c.]

   Hyponyms: eco-apocalypse, snowpocalypse, retail apocalypse, replyallpocalypse; zombie apocalypse, zombocalypse; nuclear winter, volcanic winter

   Near-synonyms: cataclysm, catastrophe, holocaust; armageddon, doomsday, end times, eschaton, judgement day, judgment day

   A nuclear apocalypse would have been possible if tensions went out of control during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 180:

     Man has forgotten the soul and thus doomed his civilization to apocalypse.

   • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 699:

     The Spanish mission in America soon became not so much crusade as apocalypse.

   • 2025 January 10, Peter Thiel, quoting Barack Obama, “A time for truth and reconciliation”, in Financial Times‎^[1]:

     In 2016, President Barack Obama told his staff that Donald Trump’s election victory was “not the apocalypse”. By any definition, he was correct. But understood in the original sense of the Greek word apokálypsis, meaning “unveiling”, Obama could not give the same reassurance in 2025.

3. (Christianity) The unveiling of events prophesied in the Revelation; the second coming and the end of life on Earth; global destruction. [from 19th c.]

   Alternative form: Apocalypse

   Synonyms: armageddon, doomsday, end times, eschaton

   Meronyms: Final Judgment, Judgment Day, judgement day, judgment day

   Near-synonym: Ragnarok

4. (Christianity) The Book of Revelation.

   Alternative form: Apocalypse

   Synonym: Revelation

• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “apocalypse”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

From Latin apocalypsis, from Ancient Greek ἀποκάλυψις (apokálupsis).

• IPA^(key): /a.pɔ.ka.lips/

• Audio:

  (file)

apocalypse f (plural apocalypses)

1. apocalypse (disaster)

• apocalyptique

• “apocalypse”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

apocalypse

1. ablative singular of apocalypsis