Drastic means extreme and sudden, with big effects. Drastic action, a drastic cut, drastic measures.
It is nearly always used of decisions rather than events, and it carries a warning: drastic measures are what you take when the ordinary ones have failed. Drastic times call for drastic measures is the standing justification. Note drastically, which is common before verbs of change — drastically reduced, drastically altered; and that drastic came into English as a medical term for a purgative that worked violently.
1adjectivedrasticExtreme and sudden, with big effects.
“Cutting all your hair off is a drastic change, so think carefully first.”
drastic is a degree of severity.
Also accepted in games: radical
Greek drastikos means active or effective, from dran, to do. It entered English as a description of strong medicines and kept the sense of something that acts hard and fast.
Ancient Greek
δρᾱστῐκός
English, today
drastic
Built from
From Ancient Greek δρᾱστῐκός. From Ancient Greek δραστικός (“active, efficient”), from δρᾶσις (“strength, efficacy”), itself from δράω (“to do”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA