Word Study
fateful
WORDNET DICTIONARY
Adjective fateful has 4 senses
- fateful(s = adj.all) fatal - 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"
- fateful(s = adj.all) foreboding, portentous - ominously prophetic; Array
- fateful(s = adj.all) black, calamitous, disastrous, fatal - (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"
- fateful(s = adj.all) fatal - controlled or decreed by fate; predetermined; "a fatal series of events"
CIDE DICTIONARY
fateful, a. .
- Having the power of serving or accomplishing fate. J. Barlow. [1913 Webster]
- Significant of fate; ominous. [1913 Webster]"The fateful cawings of the crow."
OXFORD DICTIONARY
fateful, adj.
1 important, decisive; having far-reaching consequences.
2 controlled as if by fate.
3 causing or likely to cause disaster.
4 prophetic.
1 important, decisive; having far-reaching consequences.
2 controlled as if by fate.
3 causing or likely to cause disaster.
4 prophetic.
Derivative
fatefully adv. fatefulness n.
THESAURUS
fateful
acute, apocalyptic, appointed, awe-inspiring, bad, baleful, baneful, black, bodeful, boding, calamitous, cataclysmal, cataclysmic, catastrophic, certain, conclusive, consequential, consuming, consumptive, critical, crucial, dark, deadly, decisive, demolishing, demolitionary, depredatory, desolating, destined, destroying, destructive, determinative, devastating, devoted, dire, direful, disastrous, doomed, doomful, dreary, earnest, evil, evil-starred, fatal, fated, foreboding, foredoomed, formidable, fratricidal, gloomy, grave, heavy, ill, ill-boding, ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred, important, imposing, in store, in the cards, inauspicious, indefeasible, ineluctable, inescapable, inevasible, inevitable, inexorable, inflexible, internecine, irresistible, irrevocable, lethal, lowering, major, marked, menacing, momentous, necessary, nihilist, nihilistic, of evil portent, ominous, ordained, pivotal, portending, portentous, ravaging, relentless, resistless, ruining, ruinous, self-destructive, serious, significant, sinister, sober, solemn, somber, subversionary, subversive, suicidal, sure, sure as death, sure as fate, threatening, unavoidable, uncontrollable, undeflectable, unfavorable, unfortunate, unlucky, unpreventable, unpromising, unpropitious, unstoppable, untoward, unyielding, vandalic, vandalish, vandalistic, wasteful, wasting, weighty, withering, written
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