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Havoc vs Apocalypse - What's the difference?

havoc | apocalypse |

As a noun havoc

is widespread devastation, destruction.

As a verb havoc

is to pillage.

As an interjection havoc

is a cry in war as the signal for indiscriminate slaughter.

As a proper noun apocalypse is

(countable|biblical) the written account of a revelation of hidden things given by god to a chosen prophet.

havoc

English

Alternative forms

* havock (e.g. in Milton)

Noun

(en-noun)
  • widespread devastation, destruction
  • * Bible, Acts viii. 3
    • As for Saul, he made havoc of the church.
  • * Addison
    • Ye gods, what havoc does ambition make / Among your works!
  • :* {{quote-book
    • , year=1918 , year_published=2008 , edition=HTML , editor= , author=Edgar Rice Burroughs , title=The People that Time Forgot , chapter= citation , genre= , publisher=The Gutenberg Project , isbn= , page= , passage=But when I had come to that part of the city which I judged to have contained the relics I sought I found havoc that had been wrought there even greater than elsewhere. }}
  • mayhem

    • Usage notes

    The noun havoc is most often used in the set phrase wreak havoc. Old Hungarian Goulash?, The Grammarphobia Blog, October 31, 2008

    Derived terms

    * play havoc, raise havoc, wreak havoc, cry havoc, break havoc

    Verb

  • To pillage.
  • * 1599 , , Henry V , Act I, Scene II:
    • To tear and havoc more than she can eat.
  • To cause .

    • Usage notes

    As with other verbs ending in vowel + -c, The gerund-participle is sometimes spelled havocing, and the preterite and past participle is sometimes spelled havoced; for citations using these spellings, see their respective entries. However, the spellings havocking and havocked are far more common. Compare panic, picnic.

    References

    Interjection

    (en interjection)
  • A cry in war as the signal for indiscriminate slaughter.
  • * Toone
    • Do not cry havoc , where you should but hunt / With modest warrant.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Cry "havoc", and let slip the dogs of war!

    apocalypse

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A revelation.
    • The early development of Perl 6 was punctuated by a series of apocalypses by Larry Wall.
  • (Christianity) The unveiling of events prophesied in the ; the second coming and the end of life on Earth; global destruction.
  • A disaster; a cataclysmic event.
  • * 2009 , (Diarmaid MacCulloch), A History of Christianity , Penguin 2010, p. 699:
    • The Spanish mission in America soon became not so much crusade as apocalypse .

    Synonyms

    * armageddon * doomsday * judgement day * nuclear holocaust * Ragnarok (Ragnarök) * Final Judgment * end times * eschaton

    Derived terms

    * apocalyptic * apocalypticism * snowpocalypse