Fate \Fate\, n. [L. fatum a prophetic declaration, oracle, what
is ordained by the gods, destiny, fate, fr. fari to speak:
cf. OF. fat. See Fame, Fable, Ban, and cf. 1st Fay,
Fairy.]
1. A fixed decree by which the order of things is prescribed;
the immutable law of the universe; inevitable necessity;
the force by which all existence is determined and
conditioned.
Necessity and chance Approach not me; and what I
will is fate. --Milton.
Beyond and above the Olympian gods lay the silent,
brooding, everlasting fate of which victim and
tyrant were alike the instruments. --Froude.
2. Appointed lot; allotted life; arranged or predetermined
event; destiny; especially, the final lot; doom; ruin;
death.
The great, th'important day, big with the fate Of
Cato and of Rome. --Addison.
Our wills and fates do so contrary run That our
devices still are overthrown. --Shak.
The whizzing arrow sings, And bears thy fate,
Antinous, on its wings. --Pope.
3. The element of chance in the affairs of life; the
unforeseen and unestimated conitions considered as a force
shaping events; fortune; esp., opposing circumstances
against which it is useless to struggle; as, fate was, or
the fates were, against him.
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate.
--Pope.
Sometimes an hour of Fate's serenest weather strikes
through our changeful sky its coming beams. --B.
Taylor.
4. pl. [L. Fata, pl. of fatum.] (Myth.) The three goddesses,
Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, sometimes called the
Destinies, or Parc[ae]who were supposed to determine
the course of human life. They are represented, one as
holding the distaff, a second as spinning, and the third
as cutting off the thread.
Note: Among all nations it has been common to speak of fate
or destiny as a power superior to gods and men --
swaying all things irresistibly. This may be called the
fate of poets and mythologists. Philosophical fate is
the sum of the laws of the universe, the product of
eternal intelligence and the blind properties of
matter. Theological fate represents Deity as above the
laws of nature, and ordaining all things according to
his will -- the expression of that will being the law.
--Krauth-Fleming.
Syn: Destiny; lot; doom; fortune; chance.
On most web browsers you can double click any word on this page to see what definitions I have for that word.
This dictionary server is not an authoratative source of information for anything. Like almost everything at sorabji.com, I set this up for my own purposes. In this case the purpose is to
browse words and ideas at random. An automatically generated page that produces Random Words
is my gateway to this resource. Below is a list of some of my favorite words discovered here. I also have attempted a word of the day type of thing,
in which I simply post interesting words that I find through the Wordswarm Random Words Pages. I have made available the complete 1828 Webster's Dictionary, which many feel is the greatest English dictionary ever published.
Other random links of mine include the Sorabji.com Random Link, which sends you to one of
over 7,000 pages on my web sites; the Face Server produces random images of
human faces; clicking the Random WAYD link shows you a random posting to my "What Are You Doing?" board; the Random USPS
Mailbox link sends you to a page with information about a random mailbox; and the random pictures page page of sorabji.com shows one of over 11,000 random images any time you load the page. On an unrelated note, I have begun making several thousand pages of legal documents searchable.
