An emphatic or older form meaning of or relating to a catastrophe; disastrous or involving sudden overwhelming failure or collapse.
From Greek 'catastrophe' + the suffix '-ical,' an alternative to '-al' that was common in Early Modern English. The double suffix emphasizes the quality of being catastrophic.
English speakers of the 1600s loved adding '-ical' to make words sound more formal and important—'catastrophical' appears in older texts but fell out of use as 'catastrophic' became the standard form.
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