apocalypse

noun

1. A revealing, especially a prophecy of, or the unfolding of, supernatural events.

   “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.

   “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.”

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

   “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. The unveiling of events prophesied in the Revelation; the second coming and the end of life on Earth; global destruction.

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

   “Near-synonym: Ragnarok”

4. The Book of Revelation.

verb

1. (transitive, uncommon)To reveal.

   “The transitory sufferings of the present time can never be put in competition with the glory which shall be apocalypsed in us; for even the creation itself, which shall not possess the glory, shall nevertheless derive from them such real solid benefit, such true freedom from real ills, that she also is desirous of our apocalypse.”

   ““And that man of sin be revealed—apocalypsed—the son of perdition; the opposing one who exalts himself against all that is called God.” […] “And then shall be apocalypsed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of His mouth, and will paralyse with the forth-shining of His arrival.[…]””

   “Jesus said to Peter, when he first realized the true character of the Messiah, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed [ἀποκάλυψε] it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven [hath apocalypsed it unto thee].” […] Mind can know nothing by logical inference concerning God, the Trinity, incarnation, immortality, resurrection, and truths, of this class, for they lie beyond the logical powers of the natural man and, if known, must be apocalypsed.”

   “We chewed breaded blasphemy in our pews, / Then gulped Welch’s grape juice, bile, and venom, / While alabaster Christ carped like a cop, / His lips apocalypsing our asses.”

2. (informal, intransitive, rare)To dwell on a huge disaster one expects to take place.

   ““To Las Vegas? When was that?” “About four months before she died. When he was twenty-one. Just before he started in on all that preaching and apocalypsing business. […] Had him a vision, he said, and God told him to change his name to Sam-u-el Mor-de-cai. And ever since then he’s been apocalypsing and doing all them cult things you read about in the newspaper.””

   “This doesn’t mean that you pretend the tornado in Kansas didn’t happen. Perhaps it spurs you to think about emergency preparedness. But you’ll be planning proactively, in the present, not worrying or apocalypsing.”

   “In one respect only was Donald Trump indebted to the conservative movement that Ronald Reagan founded: it bequeathed to him an angry, fearful base, which he was even more adept at manipulating than movement leaders had been. He destroyed his Republican adversaries by out-apocalypsing them.”

   “And it was definitely a white American fear, of losing my status, my power. The fear manifested in me as an amorphous foreboding, a discomfort with being subject to the planet and its miracles the same as everyone else was. […] How would my fear change if I stopped apocalypsing and tried to embody this moment in collapse?”

3. (ambitransitive, informal, rare)To bring about (a huge disaster).

   “The fourth age of this Lunaeon is alive with povertous homage / For those whom^([sic]) chew upon the Rockking’s wealth / And worship his unlovable stone / Apocalypsing an end to this ever-there-be-day / Wear a cloak of benightly screaming / Banshees, eager to roam whence / Windrom releases their pent rage”

   “ROBOT APOCALYPSE / Of all the apocalypses, this is my favorite. So much better than the zombie apocalypse, […] Instead of having some drooling, extremely gross-looking shuffling moron take a bite out of me and turn me into a drooling moron ([…]), I imagine C-3PO politely harvesting my organs for some terribly important reason that just happens to escape him at the moment. But really, it’s a Sophie’s choice, and I would actually prefer not to be apocalypsed on in the first place.”

   ““Robots still win,” I said. “What about if the robots don’t start…apocalypsing, until after half of humanity is turned?” “Robots still win,” I said, “easy.””

name

1. (countable)The written account of a revelation of hidden things given by God to a chosen prophet.

   “Apocalypses of Adam and Abraham (Epiphanius) and of Elias (Jerome) are also mentioned.”

2. Revelation (last book of the Bible, composed of twenty-two chapters, which narrates a vision of the end times).

   “He's been reading the Apocalypse again, and doomscrolling social media content that fixates on it.”

3. Armageddon: the destructive end of the world.

   “They keep predicting that the Apocalypse is nigh, but I notice that they have books and supplies that they're trying to sell.”