fate
/feɪt
/noun
1 [mass noun] The development of events outside a person’s control, regarded as predetermined by a supernatural power: fate decided his course for him his injury is a cruel twist of fate...
- By a strange twist of fate, that actually is what the book was called.
- Yet by an ironic twist of fate he is blind to the world around him, losing Dot, who is expecting his child, to a pastry maker.
- However, it was a cruel twist of fate that robbed him yet again of a sprint race win and, therefore, of an Irish double.
Synonyms
destiny, providence, God's will, nemesis, kismet, astral influence, the stars, what is written in the stars, one's lot in life;
predestination, predetermination;
chance, luck, serendipity, fortuity, fortune, hazard, Lady Luck, Dame Fortune;
Hinduism & Buddhism karma
archaic dole, cup, heritage
1.1 [count noun] The course of someone’s life, or the outcome of a situation for someone or something, seen as outside their control: he stared at the faces of the committee, trying to guess his fate...
- Men controlled the fates of women, whose expected aim in life was to marry well.
- While their paths diverged after 1990, their fates are entwined again this season.
- Did they realize too, that their fates were inextricably fixed to the outcome of that day's actions?
Synonyms
future, destiny, outcome, issue, upshot, end, lot, due
archaic doom, dole
1.2 [in singular] The inescapable death of a person: the guards led her to her fate...
- It is easy to see that this was the logical response to the dawning realisation of death as the fate of us all.
- His fate, death by firing squad, would hardly seem a cause for celebration.
- Jesus is not praying to be rescued from death, for that is the fate of all human beings.
Synonyms
death, demise, end, destruction, doom;
ruin, downfall, undoing, finish, disaster, catastrophe;
retribution, sentence
2 (the Fates) Greek & Roman Mythology The three goddesses who preside over the birth and life of humans. Each person was thought of as a spindle, around which the three Fates (Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos) would spin the thread of human destiny.They're called the three Fates: The Clotho, The Lachesis and The Atropos, named after the Greek mythology....
- And the sort of Goddess which the Fates held out to me was contained in the Old Religion.
- Atropos is the name of one of the Fates, mythical beings who controlled the destinies of humans.
Synonyms
the weird sisters;
Roman Mythology the Parcae;
Greek Mythology the Moirai;
Scandinavian Mythology the Norns
2.1 (Fates) another term for Norns.
verb (be fated)
Be destined to happen, turn out, or act in a particular way: [with infinitive]: the regime was fated to end badly...
- It is also a great New York story, a tai chi story, an accidental but somehow fated destiny.
- Could the unearthing of that page really have fated this destiny for us?
- The hard choice often perplexes them and they sometimes believe the decision is fated.
Synonyms
be predestined, be preordained, be foreordained, be destined, be meant, be doomed, be foredoomed, be cursed, be damned;
be sure, be certain, be bound, be guaranteed;
be inevitable, be inescapable, be ineluctable
Phrases
a fate worse than death
seal someone's fate
Derivatives
fatedness
Origin
Late Middle English: from Italian fato or (later) from its source, Latin fatum 'that which has been spoken', from fari 'speak'.
This comes from Latin fatum ‘what has been said’, from fari ‘to speak’, source also of fabulous. The main sense of fatum was ‘the judgement or sentence of the gods’, but it came to mean a person's ‘lot’, or what would happen to them. The Fates were the three goddesses of Greek and Roman mythology who presided over the birth and life of humans. Each person was thought of as a spindle, around which the three Fates (Clotho, the spinner, Lachesis, who measured the thread, and Atropos, who cut it off) would spin the thread of human destiny.