fate

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   What will happen to someone or something, especially something bad that cannot be avoided.

   No one knew the fate of the missing sailors.

2. 2
   noun

   A power believed to decide events before they happen.

   She believed that fate had brought them together.

3. 3
   verb

   To decide someone's future in advance, making it unavoidable.

   He felt he was fated to live a quiet life in his hometown.

From Middle English fate, from Latin fāta (“prediction”), plural of fātum, from fātus (“spoken”), from for (“to speak”). In this sense, displaced native Old English wyrd, whence Modern English weird.

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