doom

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A terrible fate, especially death or destruction, that seems impossible to avoid.

   Everyone sensed the approaching doom but felt helpless to stop it.

2. 2
   noun

   A heavy feeling that something very bad is about to happen.

   A sense of doom settled over the town as the storm grew closer.

3. 3
   verb

   To make someone or something certain to fail or be destroyed.

   A single bad decision doomed the whole project.

Simplified etymology

Doom comes from an ancient root meaning “to put in place,” also found in do. In Old English it could mean a law or statute, a judicial decision, or the right to judge. It was later used as a shortened form of doomsday, a use now surviving in the phrase “the crack of doom.”

From Middle English doom, dom, from Old English dōm (“judgement”), from Proto-West Germanic *dōm, from Proto-Germanic *dōmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰóh₁mos. Cognates Compare Dutch doem (“condemnation, doom; judgement”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish dom (“judgement”), Faroese and Icelandic dómur (“judgement”), Gothic 𐌳𐍉𐌼𐍃 (dōms, “insight, judgement”); also Ancient Greek θωμός (thōmós, “heap”), Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, and Ukrainian ду́ма (dúma, “thought”), Polish duma (“pride”). Doublet of duma. See also deem.

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External links

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