Word.ws English Dictionary

catastrophise

catastrophise is the non-Oxford British English form of catastrophize.

Meaning of catastrophize

Verb

catastrophize (third-person singular simple present catastrophizes, present participle catastrophizing, simple past and past participle catastrophized)

  1. (intransitive, transitive) To regard a bad situation as if it were disastrous or catastrophic.
  2. (intransitive, transitive) To expose a behavior pattern of seeking the worst interpretation and magnifying the disagreeable outcomes (of).
    • Particularly likely to overreact are those who tend to catastrophize (Ellis, 1962) and those who have Type A personalities (Friedman & Rosenman, 1974).1947, Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, University of Michigan Research Center for Group Dynamics, Human Relations
    Synonyms:
    awfulize
  3. (obsolete) To end a comedy.

Forms of catastrophise

third-person singular presentcatastrophises
present participlecatastrophising
past participlecatastrophised
pastcatastrophised

Words formed from catastrophise

Questions about catastrophise

What is catastrophise the non-Oxford British English form of?
Catastrophise is the non-Oxford British English form of catastrophize.

Words near catastrophise in the dictionary

  1. catastrophical
  2. catastrophically
  3. catastrophin
  4. catastrophins
  5. catastrophisation
  6. catastrophise
  7. catastrophised
  8. catastrophiser
  9. catastrophisers
  10. catastrophises
  11. catastrophising

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: catastrophise (page history and authors); catastrophize (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “catastrophise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/catastrophise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.