apocalypse – English noun declension

English noun forms of apocalypse

Noun: apocalypse
Singularapocalypse
Pluralapocalypses

Sample Sentences

  • The early development of Perl 6 was punctuated by a series of apocalypses by Larry Wall.
  • 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.
  • Man has forgotten the soul and thus doomed his civilization to apocalypse. [1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 180:]
  • The Spanish mission in America soon became not so much crusade as apocalypse. [2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 699:]
  • 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. [2025 January 10, Peter Thiel, quoting Barack Obama, “A time for truth and reconciliation”, in Financial Times, archived from the original on 10 Jan 2025:]
  • Meronyms: Final Judgment, Judgment Day, judgement day, judgment day
  • Near-synonym: Ragnarok

Etymology

1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep
3. Proto-Indo-European *-o
4. Proto-Indo-European *h₂epó
5. Proto-Hellenic *apó
6. Ancient Greek ᾰ̓πό (ăpó)
7. Ancient Greek ἀπο- (apo-)
8. Ancient Greek καλύπτω (kalúptō)
9. Ancient Greek ἀποκαλύπτω (apokalúptō)
10. Proto-Indo-European *-tis
11. Proto-Hellenic *-tis
12. Ancient Greek -τις (-tis)
13. Ancient Greek -σις (-sis)
14. Ancient Greek ᾰ̓ποκᾰ́λῠψῐς (ăpokắlŭpsĭs)der.
15. Latin apocalypsisbor.
16. Middle English apocalips
17. English apocalypse
18. From Middle English apocalips, from Latin apocalypsis, from Ancient Greek ἀποκάλυψις (apokálupsis, “revelation”, literally “uncovering”), from ἀποκαλύπτω (apokalúptō, “to reveal”), from ἀπό (apó, “back, away from”) + καλύπτω (kalúptō, “to cover”), + -σις (-sis, suffix forming nouns). 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.
19. The verb is from the noun and, in sense 1, a semantic loan from the etymonic Ancient Greek verb ἀποκαλύπτω (apokalúptō, “to reveal”). See: Middle English Nouns 'apocalips', Latin Nouns 'apocalypsis', Ancient Greek Nouns 'ἀποκάλυψις'.

Verbs referencing "apocalypse"

Finnish Nouns apokalypsi.