RUINOUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ruinous mean? 

• RUINOUS (adjective)
  The adjective RUINOUS has 2 senses:

1. extremely harmful; bringing physical or financial ruin

2. causing injury or blight; especially affecting with sudden violence or plague or ruin

  Familiarity information: RUINOUS used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RUINOUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Extremely harmful; bringing physical or financial ruin

Synonyms:

catastrophic; ruinous

Context example:

a ruinous course of action

Similar:

harmful (causing or capable of causing harm)

Derivation:

ruin (an event that results in destruction)

ruin (an irrecoverable state of devastation and destruction)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Causing injury or blight; especially affecting with sudden violence or plague or ruin

Synonyms:

blasting; ruinous

Context example:

a ruinous war

Similar:

destructive (causing destruction or much damage)

 Context examples 

One day, as he went prancing down a quiet street, he saw at the window of a ruinous castle the lovely face.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I could not forbear admiring at these odd appearances, both in town and country; and I made bold to desire my conductor, that he would be pleased to explain to me, what could be meant by so many busy heads, hands, and faces, both in the streets and the fields, because I did not discover any good effects they produced; but, on the contrary, I never knew a soil so unhappily cultivated, houses so ill contrived and so ruinous, or a people whose countenances and habit expressed so much misery and want.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

She listened to college stories with deep interest, caressed pointers and poodles without a murmur, agreed heartily that Tom Brown was a brick, regardless of the improper form of praise, and when one lad proposed a visit to his turtle tank, she went with an alacrity which caused Mamma to smile upon her, as that motherly lady settled the cap which was left in a ruinous condition by filial hugs, bearlike but affectionate, and dearer to her than the most faultless coiffure from the hands of an inspired Frenchwoman.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)