fatality

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   That which is decreed by fate or which is fatal; a fatal event.

   What can I say, or think of this most terrible of fatalities?

2. 2
   noun

   An accident that causes death.

   the whole thing felt like being in a near traffic fatality avoided by inches and later not being able to think of the whole thing lest you begin shaking...

3. 3
   noun

   A move used to deliver a coup de grâce to a defeated opponent.

   My first enchantment with computers came when I was about six years old, in Montreal in the early nineties, playing Mortal Kombat with my oldest brother. He told me about some “fatalities”—gruesome, witty ways of killing your opponent.

4. 4
   noun

   the quality of being able to cause death or fatal disasters

5. 5
   noun

   a death resulting from an accident or a disaster

6. 6
   noun

   The state proceeding from destiny; invincible necessity, superior to, and independent of, free and rational control.

7. 7
   noun

   Tendency to death, destruction or danger, as if by decree of fate.

8. 8
   noun

   Death.

Etymology

From French fatalité. equivalent to fatal + -ity. The video game move sense was popularized by the Mortal Kombat series.