fatality
/fəˈtalɪti
/ /feɪˈtalɪti/noun (plural fatalities)
1An occurrence of death by accident, in war, or from disease: 80 per cent of pedestrian fatalities occur in built-up areas...
- In contrast, road accident fatalities only occur because of an unexpected event.
- Future fatalities and accidents can be avoided, so when can the improvement work start?
- I can barely think of any main road in our city which is not blighted by accidents and fatalities.
Synonyms
death, casualty, mortality, victim, loss, dead person;
(fatalities) dead
fatal accident, tragedy, disaster, catastrophe, calamity
2 [mass noun] Helplessness in the face of fate: a sense of fatality gripped her...
- They address matters of fate, fatality and finality with yet more weight and wit.
- There's a certain sense of fatality to it and there's no hope for you.
- Here-like the other sites-there was a sense of fatality about the redundancies that had occurred.
Origin
Late 15th century (denoting the quality of causing death or disaster): from French fatalité or late Latin fatalitas, from Latin fatalis 'decreed by fate', from fatum (see fate). sense 1 dates from the mid 19th century.