fate: Meaning and Definition of

fate

Pronunciation: (fāt), [key]
— n., v., fat•ed, fat•ing.
—n.
  1. something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot: It is always his fate to be left behind.
  2. the universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably prescribed; the decreed cause of events; time: Fate decreed that they would never meet again.
  3. that which is inevitably predetermined; destiny: Death is our ineluctable fate.
  4. a prophetic declaration of what must be: The oracle pronounced their fate.
  5. death, destruction, or ruin.
  6. the three goddesses of destiny, known to the Greeks as the Moerae and to the Romans as the Parcae.
—v.t.
  1. to predetermine, as by the decree of fate; destine (used in the passive): a person who was fated to be the savior of the country.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
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