"act of God" meaning in English

See act of God in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: acts of God [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|acts of God}} act of God (plural acts of God)
  1. (law) Categories (topical): Law Synonyms: force majeure, vis major
    Sense id: en-act_of_God-en-noun-en:unexpected_bad_event Topics: law
  2. (law) Categories (topical): Law Synonyms: force majeure, vis major
    Sense id: en-act_of_God-en-noun-en:unexpected_bad_event1 Topics: law
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see act, of, God. Synonyms: Act of God
    Sense id: en-act_of_God-en-noun-GY0iFba~ Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Finnish translations, Terms with French translations, Terms with German translations, Terms with Mandarin translations, Terms with Polish translations, Terms with Portuguese translations, Terms with Russian translations, Terms with Spanish translations, Terms with Tagalog translations, Terms with Turkish translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 25 25 51 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 19 19 63 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 15 15 70 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 20 20 60 Disambiguation of Terms with Finnish translations: 20 20 60 Disambiguation of Terms with French translations: 18 18 64 Disambiguation of Terms with German translations: 20 20 61 Disambiguation of Terms with Mandarin translations: 21 21 57 Disambiguation of Terms with Polish translations: 20 20 60 Disambiguation of Terms with Portuguese translations: 23 23 54 Disambiguation of Terms with Russian translations: 18 18 63 Disambiguation of Terms with Spanish translations: 15 15 71 Disambiguation of Terms with Tagalog translations: 20 20 60 Disambiguation of Terms with Turkish translations: 20 20 61
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Translations (unforeseen occurrence): 不可抗力 (bùkěkànglì) (Chinese Mandarin), 天災 /天灾 (tiānzāi) (Chinese Mandarin), luonnonmullistus (Finnish), force majeure [feminine] (French), höhere Gewalt [feminine] (German), siła wyższa [feminine] (Polish), caso fortuito [masculine] (Portuguese), força maior [feminine] (Portuguese), стихи́йное бе́дствие (stixíjnoje bédstvije) [neuter] (Russian), форс-мажо́р (fors-mažór) [masculine] (Russian), fuerza mayor [feminine] (Spanish), caso fortuito [masculine] (Spanish), cosa de Dios [feminine] (Spanish), katalagahan ng Bathala (Tagalog), katalagahan ng Diyos (Tagalog), kader (Turkish)
Disambiguation of 'unforeseen occurrence': 50 50 0

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "acts of God",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
        "1": "acts of God"
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      "expansion": "act of God (plural acts of God)",
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Law",
          "orig": "en:Law",
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            "Society",
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        {
          "ref": "1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 168:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1997 January 5, Jack Miles, “On a Mission From God”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019 October, Ian Walmsley, “Cleaning up”, in Modern Railways, page 42:",
          "text": "Infrastructure failures tend to be treated like acts of God, but of course they aren't really.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An unforeseen occurrence beyond one's control, such as a natural disaster."
      ],
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          "word": "vis major"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
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          "_dis": "19 19 63",
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      ],
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          "act",
          "act#English"
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          "_dis1": "0 0 100",
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    {
      "_dis1": "50 50 0",
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "bùkěkànglì",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "word": "不可抗力"
    },
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      "_dis1": "50 50 0",
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "word": "luonnonmullistus"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "50 50 0",
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "force majeure"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "50 50 0",
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "höhere Gewalt"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "50 50 0",
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
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    },
    {
      "_dis1": "50 50 0",
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "caso fortuito"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "50 50 0",
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "força maior"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "50 50 0",
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "stixíjnoje bédstvije",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "стихи́йное бе́дствие"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "50 50 0",
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "fors-mažór",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "форс-мажо́р"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "50 50 0",
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
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    },
    {
      "_dis1": "50 50 0",
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
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    },
    {
      "_dis1": "50 50 0",
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "cosa de Dios"
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      "_dis1": "50 50 0",
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      "lang": "Tagalog",
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      "word": "katalagahan ng Bathala"
    },
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      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "word": "katalagahan ng Diyos"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "50 50 0",
      "code": "tr",
      "lang": "Turkish",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "word": "kader"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "act of God"
  ],
  "word": "act of God"
}
{
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    "Terms with Portuguese translations",
    "Terms with Russian translations",
    "Terms with Spanish translations",
    "Terms with Tagalog translations",
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          "ref": "1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 168:",
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        {
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      "word": "Act of God"
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      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "bùkěkànglì",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "word": "不可抗力"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "tiānzāi",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "word": "天災 /天灾"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "word": "luonnonmullistus"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "force majeure"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "höhere Gewalt"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "siła wyższa"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "caso fortuito"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "força maior"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "stixíjnoje bédstvije",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "стихи́йное бе́дствие"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "fors-mažór",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "форс-мажо́р"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "fuerza mayor"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "caso fortuito"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "cosa de Dios"
    },
    {
      "code": "tl",
      "lang": "Tagalog",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "word": "katalagahan ng Bathala"
    },
    {
      "code": "tl",
      "lang": "Tagalog",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "word": "katalagahan ng Diyos"
    },
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      "code": "tr",
      "lang": "Turkish",
      "sense": "unforeseen occurrence",
      "word": "kader"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "act of God"
  ],
  "word": "act of God"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-17 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-02 using wiktextract (ca09fec and c40eb85). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.