Adjacent Words

Fatal definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

FA'TAL, a. [L. fatalis. See Fate.]
1. Proceeding from fate or destiny; necessary; inevitable.
These things are fatal and necessary.
2. Appointed by fate or destiny.
It was fatal to the king to fight for his money.
In the foregoing senses the word is now little used.
3. Causing death or destruction; deadly; mortal; as a fatal wound; a fatal disease.
4. Destructive; calamitous; as a fatal day; a fatal event.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: bringing death [ant: nonfatal]
2: having momentous consequences; of decisive importance; "that fateful meeting of the U.N. when...it declared war on North Korea"- Saturday Rev; "the fatal day of the election finally arrived" [syn: fateful, fatal]
3: (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"- Charles Darwin; "it is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it"- Douglas MacArthur; "a fateful error" [syn: black, calamitous, disastrous, fatal, fateful]
4: controlled or decreed by fate; predetermined; "a fatal series of events" [syn: fatal, fateful]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Etymology: Middle English, from Latin fatalis, from fatum fate Date: 14th century 1. obsolete fated 2. fateful <a fatal hour> 3. a. of or relating to fate b. resembling fate in proceeding according to a fixed sequence c. determining one's fate 4. a. causing death b. bringing ruin <a fatal attraction to gambling> c. causing failure <a fatal design flaw> Synonyms: see deadly

Oxford Reference Dictionary

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. Derivatives: fatally adv. fatalness n. Etymology: ME f. OF fatal or L fatalis (as FATE)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Fatal Fa"tal, a. [L. fatalis, fr. fatum: cf. F. fatal. See Fate.] 1. Proceeding from, or appointed by, fate or destiny; necessary; inevitable. [R.] These thing are fatal and necessary. --Tillotson. It was fatal to the king to fight for his money. --Bacon. 2. Foreboding death or great disaster. [R.] That fatal screech owl to our house That nothing sung but death to us and ours. --Shak. 3. Causing death or destruction; deadly; mortal; destructive; calamitous; as, a fatal wound; a fatal disease; a fatal day; a fatal error.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. A fatal action has very undesirable effects. It would clearly be fatal for Europe to quarrel seriously with America... He made the fatal mistake of compromising early... It would deal a fatal blow to his fading chances of success. ADJ • fatally Failure now could fatally damage his chances in the future. ADV: ADV with v 2. A fatal accident or illness causes someone's death. A hospital spokesman said she had suffered a fatal heart attack. ADJ • fatally The dead soldier is reported to have been fatally wounded in the chest. ADV: usu ADV with v

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Deadly, mortal, lethal. 2. Calamitous, destructive, ruinous, mischievous, baneful, baleful, pernicious, most harmful. 3. Fraught with fate, fateful.

Moby Thesaurus

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