eucatastrophe
Syllables: eu·ca·tas·tro·phe/ˌjuːkəˈtæstɹəfi/US/ˌjukəˈtæstɹəfi/
eucatastrophe noun: a catastrophe (dramatic event leading to plot resolution) that results in the protagonist's well-being.
Noun
eucatastrophe (plural eucatastrophes)
- A catastrophe (dramatic event leading to plot resolution) that results in the protagonist's well-being.
- But at the story of the little boy (which is a fully attested fact of course) with its apparent sad ending and then its sudden unhoped-for happy ending, I was deeply moved and had that peculiar emotion we all have – though not often. […] For it I coined the word ‘eucatastrophe’: the sudden happy...[1944 November 7, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “88. From a Letter to Christopher Tolkien[,] 28 October 1944 (FS 58)”, in Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien, editors...
- Let us hymn the small but journal wonders
of Nature and of households, and then finish
on a serio-comic note with legends
of ultimate eucatastrophe,
regeneration beyond the waters.1969 June 5, W. H. Auden, “Epistle to a Godson”, in The New York Review, issue
- Synonyms:
- happy ending, silver lining, necessary evil
eucatastrophe meaning in Bengali
eucatastrophe in Bengali
- একটি সুখকর মোড়
Examples of eucatastrophe in a sentence
- The "problem" of T[homas] S[tearns] Eliot comes partly from our post-Christian sense of a world where Tolkien's eucatastrophes never happen, and partly from the way we write biography.1988, Alzina Stone Dale, “Prologue: J. Alfred Prufrock among the Prophets”, in T. S. Eliot: The Philosopher Poet (The Wheaton Literary...
- Literary unity demands that once a eucatastrophe happens it must be accepted as part of the story rather than as an arbitrary whim of the author.2015, John J. Davenport, quoting Eleanor Helms, “The Virtues of Ambivalence: Wholeheartedness as Existential Telos and the Unwillable...
Synonyms of eucatastrophe
Forms of eucatastrophe
| plural | eucatastrophes |
|---|
Origin of eucatastrophe
From eu- + catastrophe, coined by English author and academic J. R. R. Tolkien in 1944 as part of a letter: see quotation.
Words formed from eucatastrophe
Questions about eucatastrophe
- What does eucatastrophe mean?
- Eucatastrophe means a catastrophe (dramatic event leading to plot resolution) that results in the protagonist's well-being.
- What is eucatastrophe in Bengali?
- Eucatastrophe in Bengali is একটি সুখকর মোড়. See Eucatastrophe meaning in Bengali.
- How do you use eucatastrophe in a sentence?
- The "problem" of T[homas] S[tearns] Eliot comes partly from our post-Christian sense of a world where Tolkien's eucatastrophes never happen, and partly from the way we write biography.
- What part of speech is eucatastrophe?
- Eucatastrophe is a noun.
- How do you pronounce eucatastrophe?
- Eucatastrophe is pronounced /ˌjuːkəˈtæstɹəfi/ (UK).
- What is the plural of eucatastrophe?
- The plural of eucatastrophe is eucatastrophes.
Words near eucatastrophe in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: eucatastrophe (page history and authors); eucatastrophe (Bengali Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-eucatastrophe.wav.
Cite this entry: “eucatastrophe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/eucatastrophe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.