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Also found as Catastrapharian. 1. Someone who overplays or otherwise overstates negative events. Catastropharians thus create a ‘mountain out of mole hill’ or worse. Such usage also includes the hypochondriac’s reaction to describing a trifling malady such as a hangnail. 2. Someone who invents catastrophes when there are none. This would be akin to Chicken Little’s ‘the sky is falling’ pronouncement upon experiencing rain. 3. Alternately, someone who literally takes a bad situation and turns it into something worse, thereby creating a catastrophe. “The catastropharian argument is, in a nutshell, that the larger financial obligations of an older population, when spread over a smaller base of younger workers, will create a ruinous fiscal overhang…" Goldsmith, Jeff. The Long Baby Boom: An Optimistic Vision for a Graying Generation. JHU Press. 2008. p. 35.
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