fatal(s = adj.all) fateful - having momentous consequences; of decisive importance; "that fateful meeting of the U.N. when...it declared war on North Korea"; "the fatal day of the election finally arrived"
fatal(s = adj.all) black, calamitous, disastrous, fateful - (of events) having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences; bringing ruin; "the stock market crashed on Black Friday"; "a calamitous defeat"; "the battle was a disastrous end to a disastrous campaign"; "such doctrines, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my theory"; "it is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it"; "a fateful error"
fatal(s = adj.all) fateful - controlled or decreed by fate; predetermined; "a fatal series of events"

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CIDE DICTIONARY

fatal, a. [L. fatalis, fr. fatum: cf. F. fatal. See Fate.].

Proceeding from, or appointed by, fate or destiny; necessary; inevitable. [1913 Webster]
"These thing are fatal and necessary." [1913 Webster]

"It was fatal to the king to fight for his money." [1913 Webster]
Foreboding death or great disaster. [1913 Webster]
"That fatal screech owl to our house
That nothing sung but death to us and ours." [1913 Webster]
Causing death or destruction; deadly; mortal; destructive; calamitous; as, a fatal wound; a fatal disease; a fatal day; a fatal error. [1913 Webster]

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OXFORD DICTIONARY

fatal, adj.
1 causing or ending in death (a fatal accident).
2 (often foll. by to) destructive; ruinous; ending in disaster (was fatal to their chances; made a fatal mistake).
3 fateful, decisive.

Derivative

fatally adv. fatalness n.

Etymology

ME f. OF fatal or L fatalis (as FATE)

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THESAURUS

fatal

accidental, adventitious, aleatory, appointed, approaching, awe-inspiring, badly off, baleful, baneful, black, brutal, calamitous, casual, casualty, cataclysmal, cataclysmic, catastrophic, causeless, chance, chancy, coming, consuming, consumptive, contingent, damaging, deadliness, deadly, death, death-bringing, deathful, deathly, decreed, demolishing, demolitionary, depredatory, depressed, desired, desolating, destinal, destined, destroying, destructive, determined, devastating, devoted, dicey, dire, disastrous, donsie, doomed, doomful, dreadful, earnest, emergent, essential, eventual, evil-starred, extrapolated, fatality, fated, fateful, fatidic, feral, final, fluky, foredoomed, foreordained, formidable, forthcoming, fortuitous, fortuneless, fratricidal, funest, future, futuristic, grave, grievous, hapless, harmful, heavy, hereafter, hoped-for, iffy, ill off, ill-fated, ill-starred, imminent, imposing, in adverse circumstances, in store, in the cards, inauspicious, incidental, indeterminate, ineluctable, inescapable, inevitable, internecine, killing, later, lethal, lethality, luckless, malefic, maleficent, malign, malignancy, malignant, marked, mischievous, mortal, mortality, murderous, nearing, necessary, nihilist, nihilistic, noxiousness, ominous, ordained, out of luck, pernicious, perniciousness, pestilent, pestilential, planet-struck, planned, plotted, poisonous, poisonousness, portentous, predestined, predetermined, predicted, preordained, probable, projected, prophesied, prospective, ravaging, risky, ruining, ruinous, sad, savage, self-destructive, serious, short of luck, sinister, sober, solemn, star-crossed, subversionary, subversive, suicidal, terminal, to come, to-be, toxic, tragic, ultimate, unavoidable, unblessed, uncaused, underprivileged, undetermined, unexpected, unforeseeable, unforeseen, unfortunate, unhappy, unlooked-for, unlucky, unpredictable, unprosperous, unprovidential, vandalic, vandalish, vandalistic, virulence, virulent, wasteful, wasting, weighty, withering, wreckful, written

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ROGET THESAURUS

fatal

Killing

N killing, homicide, manslaughter, murder, assassination, trucidation, iccusion, effusion of blood, blood, blood shed, gore, slaughter, carnage, butchery, battue, massacre, fusillade, noyade, thuggery, Thuggism, deathblow, finishing stroke, coup de grace, quietus, execution, judicial murder, martyrdom, butcher, slayer, murderer, Cain, assassin, terrorist, cutthroat, garroter, bravo, Thug, Moloch, matador, sabreur, guet-a-pens, gallows, executioner, man-eater, apache, hatchet man, highbinder, regicide, parricide, matricide, fratricide, infanticide, feticide, foeticide, uxoricide, vaticide, suicide, felo de se, hara-kiri, suttee, Juggernath, immolation, auto da fe, holocaust, suffocation, strangulation, garrote, hanging, lapidation, deadly weapon, Aceldama, slaughtering, phthisozoics, sport, sporting, the chase, venery, hunting, coursing, shooting, fishing, pig- sticking, sportsman, huntsman, fisherman, hunter, Nimrod, slaughterhouse, meat packing plant, shambles, abattoir, fatal accident, violent death, casualty, killing, murderous, slaughterous, sanguinary, sanguinolent, blood stained, blood thirsty, homicidal, red handed, bloody, bloody minded, ensanguined, gory, thuggish, mortal, fatal, lethal, dead, deadly, mortiferous, lethiferous, unhealthy internecine, suicidal, sporting, piscatorial, piscatory, in at the death, assassination has never changed the history of the.

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