traumascape

T1R1A1U1M3A1S1C3A1P3E1

noun

A landscape, real or figurative, defined by the traumatic events that have occurred there.

Scrabble 17

Meanings

nountraumascape (plural traumascapes)

plural traumascapes

  1. A landscape, real or figurative, defined by the traumatic events that have occurred there.

    In his short story, the Vietnam War becomes an amalgam of all modern wars and genocides and Vietnam itself an extended traumascape.

    2007, Magali Compan, Katarzyna Pieprzak, Land and Landscape in Francographic Literature
    2 more examples

    New York's latest traumascape was a site every bit as extraordinary as its counterpart in Stalinist Moscow. Not simply a monstrous and spectacular eyesore, it was a place of immense power, a vortex sucking everything into itself.

    2005, Maria M. Tumarkin, Traumascapes: The Power and Fate of Places Transformed by Tragedy

    In other words, most (in)dependent and intervening variables in current stress models are heavily influenced by the work of culture. The individual level of perceiving and dealing with threats interacts with the collective level of the traumascape.

    2018, Dinesh Bhugra, Kamaldeep Bhui, Textbook of Cultural Psychiatry, page 382

Origin

From trauma + -scape, coined by Maria M. Tumarkin.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

traumascape. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/traumascape

MLA

“traumascape.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/traumascape. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “traumascape,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/traumascape.

Source: traumascape on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.