act of God
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See also: Act of God
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Noun
[edit]act of God (plural acts of God)
- (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.
- 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.
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see act, of, God.
Translations
[edit]unforeseen occurrence
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