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WonderWord origin

'Disaster' comes through French from Italian disastro, made of dis-, 'bad', and astro, 'star'. It originally referred to an unlucky position of a star or planet, which astrologers blamed for misfortune, and soon came to mean any sudden catastrophe.

Merriam-Webster

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The word reached English in the 1590s, when many people still believed that the planets shaped human lives, and Shakespeare played on that link. In King Lear, written around 1606, the scheming Edmund mocks people who, when life goes badly, 'make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars' instead of blaming their own behaviour. Medieval Latin had a similar phrase, astrum sinistrum, 'unlucky star', and English still calls a doomed plan or couple 'ill-starred'. Another everyday word keeps the same belief: 'influenza' is Italian for 'influence', the power once thought to stream down from the stars. Italians were using it for epidemics by the early 1500s, and English borrowed it in 1743, during an outbreak that began in Italy.

Türkçe oku
İngilizcedeki “disaster” (felaket) sözcüğü, Fransızca yoluyla İtalyanca disastro'dan gelir. Sözcük, “kötü” anlamındaki dis- ön eki ile “yıldız” demek olan astro'nun birleşimidir. Önceleri astrolojide uğursuzluk getirdiğine inanılan bir yıldız ya da gezegen konumunu anlatıyordu; kısa sürede her türlü ani felaketin adı oldu.

Sözcük İngilizceye 1590'larda, gezegenlerin insan hayatına yön verdiğine hâlâ yaygın biçimde inanılan bir dönemde girdi. Shakespeare de bu bağla oynar: 1606 dolaylarında yazdığı Kral Lear'de entrikacı Edmund, işler kötü gidince suçu kendi davranışlarında değil de güneşte, ayda ve yıldızlarda arayanlarla alay eder. Orta Çağ Latincesinde de benzer bir deyim vardı: astrum sinistrum, yani “uğursuz yıldız”. Türkçede de aynı inancın izleri yaşıyor. “Talih” de Arapçada “doğan, yükselen yıldız” anlamına gelen tâli'den gelir; şanssız kişiye “yıldızı düşük” denir, birden ün kazanana da “yıldızı parladı” denir. İngilizcedeki “influenza” (grip) da aynı inancı taşır: İtalyancada “etki” demektir ve eskiden yıldızlardan yeryüzüne inen etkiyi anlatırdı. İtalyanlar sözcüğü 1500'lerin başında salgınlar için kullanıyordu; İngilizce onu 1743'te, İtalya'da başlayan bir salgın sırasında aldı.

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