predestine

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to decide, determine, or make inevitable in advance

   Nothing predestined the small workshop to become a global company.

2. 2
   verb

   in theology, to determine beforehand by divine will a person's ultimate fate or salvation

   The doctrine held that God had predestined the elect to salvation.

From Old French predestiner and Medieval Latin praedestinare, from Latin prae-, 'before,' + destinare, 'determine or appoint.' Christian theology made predestination a technical term for divine determination of salvation, while secular use broadened to any apparently fixed outcome.

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