act of God

See also: Act of God

English

Alternative forms

• Act of God

Noun

act of God (plural acts of God)

1. (law) An unforeseen occurrence beyond one's control, such as a natural disaster.

   Synonyms: force majeure, vis major

   Coordinate terms: accident, bolt from the blue

   • 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 168:

     They didn't get shot to death in hold-ups, strangled to death in rapes, stabbed to death in saloons, bludgeoned to death with axes by parents or children or die summarily by some other act of God.

   • 1997 January 5, Jack Miles, “On a Mission From God”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     The action of “The Discovery of Heaven” combines the emotional melodrama of a telenovela with a sequence of events that an insurance lawyer would call acts of God.

   • 2019 October, Ian Walmsley, “Cleaning up”, in Modern Railways, page 42:

     Infrastructure failures tend to be treated like acts of God, but of course they aren't really.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see act,‎ of,‎ God.

Translations

unforeseen occurrence

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 不可抗力 (zh) (bùkěkànglì), 天災／天灾 (zh) (tiānzāi)

• Danish: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: luonnonmullistus (fi)
• French: force majeure (fr) f
• German: höhere Gewalt (de) f
• Polish: siła wyższa (pl) f
• Portuguese: caso fortuito m, força maior f
• Russian: стихи́йное бе́дствие (ru) n (stixíjnoje bédstvije), форс-мажо́р (ru) m (fors-mažór)
• Spanish: fuerza mayor f, caso fortuito m, cosa de Dios f
• Tagalog: katalagahan ng Bathala, katalagahan ng Diyos
• Turkish: kader (tr)