act of God

• Act of God

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, →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.