millennium

en-noun

millennium (plural millennia or millenniums)

From Late Latin mīllennium, from Latin mīllennis (“1000-year”) + -ium (forming abstract nouns).

milénium

year when a period of 1000 years ends and another begins

But these seekers, too, are saved - by virtue of the inherited symbolic aids of society, the rites of passage, the grace-yielding sacraments, given to mankind of old by the redeemers and handed down through millenniums.

1968, Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2nd edition, London: Fontana Press, published 1993, page 23:

The first known man-made tools, including spear points and axes, were associated with a hunting and gathering pattern that lasted, according to anthropologists, almost 200 millennia.

2013, Al Gore, The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change, New York: Random House, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 37:

Magnolias are some of the most primitive of our flowering trees, and fossils dating back millennia prove that they have had little need to evolve.

2013 March 24, Dan Pearson, The Guardian:

A period of time consisting of one thousand years.

millénaire (continental Normandy; Jersey: millénaithe)


apocalypse

From Middle English apocalips, from Latin apocalypsis, from Ancient Greek ἀποκάλυψις (apokálupsis, “revelation”), literally meaning "uncovering", from ἀπό (apó, “back, away from”) and καλύπτω (kalúptō, “I cover”). The sense evolution to "catastrophe, end of the world" stems from the depiction of such events in the biblical Book of Revelation, also called the Apocalypse of (i.e. Revelation to) John.


Ragnarok

/ˈɹæɡ.nəˌɹɒk/

/ˈɹæɡ.nəˌɹɔk/

Borrowed from Old Norse ragnarǫk (modern Icelandic ragnarök), from regin (“gods”) + rǫk (“fate, judgment”).

Wilhelmina weeps, now and then, with her good Sonsfeld; hopes nevertheless there will be some dawn to this ragnarök, or general ‘twilight of the gods.’

1858, Thomas Carlyle, chapter VIII, in History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book VII, page 274:

And all that is before them and the whole civilised world, would be long centuries of anarchy such as the world has not seen for ages—a true Ragnarok, a twilight of the very gods, an age such as the wise woman foretold in the old Voluspà.

1902, Charles Kingsley, “Ancient Civilisation”, in Historical Lectures and Essays, Macmillan and Co.:

But this heaven was not to last forever. Some day would come Ragnarok, or the Twilight of the Gods, when all creation would be destroyed, and all the Gods and men save Alfadur perish. Surtur, after killing the last of these Gods, would burn up the world.

1916 February, H. P. Lovecraft, “The Teuton's Battle-Song”, in United Amateur:

(Norse mythology) A series of future events culminating in a battle, fought between the Æsir and einherjar on one side, and the forces of Surtr, Loki, and Loki's children on the other, in which all of creation is burned down and almost all life is extinguished.


end times

And I can hear it loud and clear / The world is ending, and what do I care? / She's gone, end times are here

2010, Mark Oliver Everett (lyrics and music), “End Times”, performed by Eels:

Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Dallas, said in an interview that Mr. Van Impe’s premillennial view of the end times paved the way for his own ministry and that of other popular preachers like John Hagee and David Jeremiah.

2020 January 22, Elizabeth Dias, “Jack Van Impe, End Times Preacher on TV, Is Dead at 88”, in The New York Times:

(Christianity) The days leading up to the second coming of the Messiah (Christ), when the world will be judged.

ахырызаман

the days leading up to the second coming of the Messiah

Both Islam and Christianity have a strong eschatology (view of the end times) that comes from their worldview.

2004, William Wagner, How Islam Plans to Change the World, Kregel Publications, →ISBN, page 210:

The coming of the Mahdi during the end—times […]

2012, Henry Bayman, The Teachings of a Perfect Master, Page 169

(Islam) The days leading to the coming of the Mahdi, the Messiah or Judgment Day.


apocatastasis

From Latin, from Ancient Greek ἀποκατάστασις (apokatástasis, “restoration, reëstablishment”), from ἀποκαθίστημι (apokathístēmi, “to stand up again”), from ἀπό- (apó-, “back again”) + καθίστημι (kathístēmi, “I set, place, constitute, appoint”), from κατά- (katá-, “down, for”) + ἵστημι (hístēmi, “I set, stand, establish”).

uder

ἀποκατάστασις

The Egyptians were the first assertors of the soul's immortality, and of its transmigration, after the death and corruption of this body, into the bodies of other animals successively, viz. until it have run round through the whole circuit of terrestrial, marine, and volatile animals, after which, they say, it is to return again into a human body; they supposing this revolution or apocatastasis of souls to be made in no less space than that of three thousand years.

1678, Julius Firmicus, translated by Ralph Cudworth, The true intellectual system of the universe, I iv 328:

If anyone shall say that all reasonable beings will one day be united in one, when the hypostases as well as the numbers and the bodies shall have disappeared,... moreover, that in this pretended apocatastasis, spirits only will continue to exist... let him be anathema.
A Tradition...concerning the Apocatastasis of the World...partly by Inundation and partly by Conflagration.

1885, Philip Schaff translating the anathemas confirmed by the 553 C.E. Second Ecumenical Council in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers

The Stoic idea was based upon an astronomical doctrine according to which the return (apokatastasis) of the planets to their proper "celestial signs" initiates the conflagration (ekpurôsis), which is the reduction of the entire cosmos to its primal element (fire), after which follows the rebirth of all existing things.

2003 January, Edward Moore, Origen of Alexandria and apokatastasis: Some Notes on the Development of a Noble Notion:

(rare) Restoration, renovation, reestablishment, particularly:

(especially religion, rare) An apocalypse leading to the remaking of the world rather than a Final Judgment, (Christianity) an Origenist doctrine condemned by the 543 C.E. Synod of Constantinople.

اِسْتِعَادَة كُلِّيَّة

the doctrine that an apocalypse will lead to the remaking of the world rather than a Final Judgment


chiliast

From Latin chiliasta, possibly via French chiliaste, from Ancient Greek χιλιαστής (khiliastḗs), from χῑ́λιοι (khī́lioi, “thousand”) + -αστής (-astḗs, “-ast, -ist: forming agent nouns”). Equivalent to chilia- + -ast.

... Agreed on all sides, except the Chiliasts...

1611, William Sclater, A Key to the Key of Scripture..., page 324:

All Anabaptists were and are still Chiliasts, expounding literally that Kingdome of a thousand years of Revel. xx. 6 to be a temporall Kingdome.

1647, anonymous author, A Short History of the Anabaptists, page 52:

(Christianity, typically derogatory) Synonym of millenarian: a person who believes the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will involve his physical rule on Earth for 1000 years.


grey goo

Coined by Eric Drexler in his 1986 book Engines of Creation.

"Our first priority has to be quarantining Xinchub's body, and examining any Yomingians who may have handled it. I don't think we're headed for a grey-goo scenario here, but we'd all feel really bad if the local biosphere got consumed by nanobots after we left."

2007 August 24, Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary, archived from the original on 2024-05-11:

[…]Through this, they learn more, and manage to reverse-engineer the ion drives of the drone, allowing them to move the station very rapidly towards Earth. On their way, they manage to send signals to multiple Foundation facilities, overriding them and using their fabrication plants to make new nanomachines. At this rate, it won't be long before there's a good old-fashioned grey-goo scenario, and humanity and the Earth are similarly consumed.

2023 October 22, “Exploring the SCP Foundation: SCP-7759 - T is for "Transmission"” (14:43 from the start), in The Exploring Series, retrieved 2024-05-15:

A hypothetical end-of-the-world event involving nanotechnology, in which out-of-control self-replicating nanobots consume all life on Earth (or another planet or moon).


Apocalypse

From Ancient Greek ἀποκάλυψις (apokálupsis, “revelation”).

(Christianity) Revelation (last book of the Bible, composed of twenty-two chapters, which narrates the end of times)


Rapture

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(Christianity) a prophesied sudden removal of Christian believers from the Earth before the Tribulation or simultaneous with the second coming of Jesus Christ


Armageddon

/ˌɑː(ɹ).məˈɡɛ.dn̩/

/ˌɑɹ.məˈɡɛ.dn̩/

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Armageddon.wav

From Middle English Hermagedon, from Old English Ermagedon, from Latin Hermagedon, from Ancient Greek Ἁρμαγεδών (Harmagedṓn), used in Revelation 16:16, referring to Mount Megiddo, the place of the last battle at the Last Judgment; from Hebrew הר מגידו / הַר מְגִדּוֹ (har megiddo).

he-l

הַר מְגִדּוֹ

הר מגידו / הַר מְגִדּוֹ (har megiddo)

And so, unfortunately, this great and spreading network of railways, that recently showed such promise as a major instrument in the modern development of China, must be left for the time being in the melting-pot of Armageddon.

1941 October, F. S. Bond, “The Railways of China”, in Railway Magazine, page 440:

(Christianity, Islam) Mount Megiddo, the site of a prophesied final battle between the forces of good and evil.


apocalypticism

en-noun

apocalypticism (countable and uncountable, plural apocalypticisms)

China's huge scale magnified the effects of apocalypticism in the Taipeng Rebellion.

2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 897:

(religion) A belief or doctrine based on apocalypse, especially which believes in an imminent end to the current world order.

apokalyptiikka

a belief or doctrine based on apocalypse


doomsday

doomsday (countable and uncountable, plural doomsdays)

From Middle English domes + dai, from Old English dom (“judgment”) + dæg (“day”). Equivalent to doom + -s- + day. Possibly influenced by Latin domus dei (“house of God”).

Judgement day; the day of the Final Judgment; any day of decisive judgement or final dissolution.


judgement day

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If God's a-coming, he ought to make it by then / Maybe he'll look around himself and say / “Guess it's time for the judgement day!”

1968, Zager and Evans (lyrics and music), “In the Year 2525”:

But when I woke up this morning / I could have sworn it was judgement day

1982, Prince (lyrics and music), “1999 [title]”, in 1999:

(Christianity, Islam, Judaism) The final trial of all humankind, both the living and the dead, by God expected to take place at the end of the world, when each is rewarded or punished according to their merits.

يَوْم الْحِسَاب

final trial of all humankind at the end of the world


eschaton

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἔσχατον (éskhaton, “last thing”), from the neuter singular of ἔσχατος (éskhatos, “last”).

bor+

Only in the eschaton will God’s purpose gain its final fulfilment, a fulfilment, be it noted, which may still include some form of movement within a time-series.

1953, F. W. Dillistone, “The Church and Time”, in Scottish Journal of Theology, volume 6, page 163:

And this is also true of the revelation of the eschata: they do not reach us in a discourse about the future still to come, but in an action, in which God has already really begun them in us.

1966 [1962], Karl Rahner, “The Hermeneutics of Eschatological Associations”, in Karl Rahner, translated by Kevin Smyth, Theological Investigations, volume 4, page 336:

Without these sayings, the textual basis for saying Jesus expected an imminent eschaton becomes very slender.

1994, Marcus J. Borg, Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship, →ISBN, page 86:

(Christianity, theology) The apocalypse; the arrival and the era of God’s reign immediately preceding the end of the world; a conception of or circumstance pertaining to this era.


chiliasm

From Ancient Greek χιλιασμός (khiliasmós), from χίλιοι (khílioi, “thousand”).

It was, however, in the Puritan movement in England, and in similar movements on the continent — especially the Bohemian Brethren — that chiliasm asserted its greatest vitality as an historical force.

1975, Gershom Gerhard Scholem (translated by R. J. Zwi Werblowsky), Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, 1626-1676, page 101:

One of them, bureaucratic conservatism, represented the routinized sphere of administration, whereas the other, chiliasm, gave rise to the utopian consciousness and modern politics.

1985, Colin Loader, The Intellectual Development of Karl Mannheim, page 104:

It is a known fact that Bolshevism has unmistakable characteristics of apocalyptic chiliasm, albeit misinterpreted in a physical, earthly way.

2008, Detlef Garbe, Between Resistance and Martyrdom: Jehovah's Witnesses in the Third Reich, page 49:

Belief in an earthly thousand-year period of peace and prosperity, sometimes equated with the return of Jesus for that period.

chiliasme

belief in an earthly thousand-year period of peace and prosperity


pralaya

(Indian mythology) destruction, apocalypse


omnicide

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How extraordinary that Curtis LeMay believed for the rest of his life that the United States “lost” the Cuban missile crisis and the Cold War. If John Kennedy had followed LeMay's advice [to bomb Cuba and take out the missile sites], history would have forgotten the Nazis and their terrible Holocaust. Ours would have been the historic omnicide.

1995, Richard Rhodes, chapter 27, in Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb:

The total extinction of the human species as a result of human action. Most commonly it refers to human extinction through nuclear warfare, but it can also refer to such extinction through other means such as global anthropogenic ecological catastrophe.


end of the world

en-noun

end of the world (plural ends of the world)

Death and destruction of life on Earth, especially human.


Tribulation

(Christian eschatology) (A period of) persecution before the Second Coming, lasting seven years, which Christians will experience worldwide which will purify and strengthen them.


second coming

When the time of Christ's second coming is at hand, there will be but a very little faith in the world. And the Lord knows that there be many, who are now as high as Lucifer, that at that day, for want of faith, will be thrown down to the sides of the pit; even in the very belly of hell.

a. 1689 (date written), John Bunyan, “ Some Gospel Truths Opened”, in Henry Stebbing, editor, The Entire Works of John Bunyan, […], volume I, London: James S[prent] Virtue, […], published 1863, →OCLC, page 75:

When Malone next looked round he was gone. "He is one of these Second-coming fanatics," he whispered to Enid. There are a lot of them—Christadelphians, Russellites, Bible Students and what-not.

1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “Which Describes an Evening in Strange Company”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

(Christianity) The prophesied return of Jesus Christ.


Maitreya

Transliteration of Sanskrit मैत्रेय (maitreya, “friendly, benevolent”).


doomsday event

The universe will contract and grow hotter until the doomsday event that astronomers have dubbed "the big crunch."

1995 April 7, Malcolm W. Browne, “A Research Team Detects Many More Galaxies”, in New York Times, retrieved 2008-07-05:

In this subsection we face the question about the possibility of evading the doomsday event in phantom models of dark energy with interaction, which are inspired in scalar-tensor theories of gravity.

2006, Ruben Curbelo et al., “Interacting phantom energy and avoidance of the big rip singularity”, in Classical and Quantum Gravity, volume 23, number 5, page 1591:

Sceptics claim switching on the supercooled magnets could create a doomsday event that would destroy the Earth.

2008 July 2, “World to end in August (maybe)”, in New Zealand Herald, retrieved 2008-07-05:

(cosmology, astronomy) An occurrence which causes the end of the universe or which destroys the planet earth; a global cataclysm.


millenarianism

en-noun

millenarianism (countable and uncountable, plural millenarianisms)

/ˌmɪ.lɪˈnɛə.ɹɪ.əˌnɪz.əm/

From millenarian + -ism. Compare millenarism, millennianism, millennialism.

It is hard to say for certain just why this brief but notable shift from passive to active millenarianism should have occurred during the Interregnum.

1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 139:

When Herman Melvilled visited , he was fascinated yet repulsed by the 'contagion' of American Christian millenarianism – 'this preposterous Jewmania', he called it, 'half-melancholy, half-farcical'.

2011, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography – A History of the Middle East, page 406:

A belief in a coming religious millennium, especially (Christianity) the belief in a coming thousand-year reign of peace heralded by the Second Coming of Christ; utopianism, belief in a coming era of peace and prosperity.


قیامت

pa-noun

قِیامَت • (qiyāmat) f (Gurmukhi spelling ਕਿਆਮਤ)

قِیامَت (canonical)
qiyāmat (romanization)
ਕਿਆਮਤ (Gurmukhi)
قِیامَت (direct singular)
قِیامَتاں (direct plural)
قِیامَت (oblique singular)
قِیامَتاں (oblique plural)
قِیامَتے (singular vocative)
قِیامَتو (plural vocative)
قِیامَتوں (ablative singular)
قِیامَتاں (ablative plural)
قِیامَتی (locative singular)
قِیامَتِیں (locative plural)
قِیامَتِیں (instrumental singular)
قِیامَتے (instrumental plural)

Borrowed from Classical Persian قیامت (qiyāmat), from Arabic قِيَامَة (qiyāma).

bor+

(religion, metonymically) doomsday; judgement day


day of judgment

en-noun

day of judgment (plural days of judgment)


doomsday cult

Coined by American sociologist John Lofland in 1966 in his book Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith

coin

A cult that believes in apocalypticism and millenarianism.


యుగాంతము

te-noun

యుగాంతము • (yugāntamu) ? (plural యుగాంతములు)

yugāntamu (romanization)
యుగాంతములు (plural)

From Sanskrit युग (yuga) + Sanskrit अन्त (anta, “end, conclusion”) + -ము (-mu).

the end of the yuga, the time of the destruction or end of the world.

Telugu Association of North America
te:యుగాంతము


ప్రళయము

ప్రళయము • (praḷayamu) ? (plural ప్రళయములు)

praḷayamu (romanization)
ప్రళయములు (plural)

Borrowed from Sanskrit प्रलय (pralaya) + -ము (-mu)


మహాప్రళయము

మహాప్రళయము • (mahāpraḷayamu) ? (plural మహాప్రళయములు)

mahāpraḷayamu (romanization)
మహాప్రళయములు (plural)


జలప్రళయము

జలప్రళయము • (jalapraḷayamu) ? (plural జలప్రళయములు)

jalapraḷayamu (romanization)
జలప్రళయములు (plural)