Adjacent Words

Fateful definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

FA'TEFUL, a. Bearing fatal power; producing fatal events.
The fateful steel.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: 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]
2: ominously prophetic [syn: fateful, foreboding, portentous]
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 Date: circa 1720 1. having a quality of ominous prophecy <a fateful remark> 2. a. involving momentous consequences ; decisive <made his fateful decision to declare war — W. L. Shirer> b. deadly, catastrophic 3. controlled by fate ; foreordained Synonyms: see ominous • fatefully adverb • fatefulness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 important, decisive; having far-reaching consequences. 2 controlled as if by fate. 3 causing or likely to cause disaster. 4 prophetic. Derivatives: fatefully adv. fatefulness n.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Fateful Fate"ful, a. . Having the power of serving or accomplishing fate. ``The fateful steel.'' --J. Barlow. 2. Significant of fate; ominous. The fateful cawings of the crow. --Longfellow. -- Fate"ful*ly, adv.- Fate"ful*ness, n.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

If an action or a time when something happened is described as fateful, it is considered to have an important, and often very bad, effect on future events. It was a fateful decision, one which was to break the Government. = momentous ADJ: usu ADJ n

Moby Thesaurus

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