Adjacent Words

Fortune definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

FOR'TUNE, n. [L. fortuna, fero or porto, tempestivus. See Hour and Time.]
1. Properly, chance; accident; luck; the arrival of something in a sudden or unexpected manner. Hence the heathens deified chance, and consecrated temples and altars to the goddess. Hence the modern use of the word, for a power supposed to distribute the lots of life, according to her own humor.
Though fortune's malice overthrow my state.
2. The good or ill that befalls man.
In you the fortune of Great Britain lies.
3. Success, good or bad; event.
Our equal crimes shall equal fortune give.
4. The chance of life; means of living; wealth.
His father dying, he was driven to London to seek his fortune.
5. Estate; possessions, as a gentleman of small fortune.
6. A large estate; great wealth. This is often the sense of the word standing alone or unqualified; as a gentleman or lady of fortune. To the ladies we say, beware of fortune-hunters.
7. The portion of a man or woman; generally of a woman.
8. Futurity; future state or events; destiny. The young are anxious to have their fortunes told.
You who men's fortunes in their faces read.
FOR'TUNE, v.t.
1. To make fortunate. [Not used.]
2. To dispose fortunately or not; also, to presage. Obs.
FOR'TUNE, v.i. To befall; to fall out; to happen; to come casually to pass.
It fortuned the same night that a christian serving a Turk in the camp, secretly gave the watchmen warning.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another; "bad luck caused his downfall"; "we ran into each other by pure chance" [syn: luck, fortune, chance, hazard]
2: a large amount of wealth or prosperity
3: an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that leads to a favorable outcome; "it was my good luck to be there"; "they say luck is a lady"; "it was as if fortune guided his hand" [syn: luck, fortune]
4: your overall circumstances or condition in life (including everything that happens to you); "whatever my fortune may be"; "deserved a better fate"; "has a happy lot"; "the luck of the Irish"; "a victim of circumstances"; "success that was her portion" [syn: fortune, destiny, fate, luck, lot, circumstances, portion]

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin fortuna; akin to Latin fort-, fors chance, luck, and perhaps to ferre to carry — more at bear Date: 14th century 1. often capitalized a hypothetical force or personified power that unpredictably determines events and issues favorably or unfavorably 2. obsolete accident, incident 3. a. prosperity attained partly through luck ; success b. luck 1 c. plural the turns and courses of luck accompanying one's progress (as through life) <her fortunes varied but she never gave up> 4. destiny, fate <can tell your fortune>; also a prediction of fortune 5. a. riches, wealth <a man of fortune> b. a store of material possessions <the family fortune> c. a very large sum of money <spent a fortune redecorating> II. verb (fortuned; fortuning) Date: 14th century transitive verb 1. obsolete to give good or bad fortune to 2. archaic to endow with a fortune intransitive verb archaic happen, chance

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 a chance or luck as a force in human affairs. b a person's destiny. 2 (Fortune) this force personified, often as a deity. 3 (in sing. or pl.) luck (esp. favourable) that befalls a person or enterprise. 4 good luck. 5 prosperity; a prosperous condition. 6 (also colloq. small fortune) great wealth; a huge sum of money. Phrases and idioms: fortune-hunter colloq. a person seeking wealth by marriage. fortune-teller a person who claims to predict future events in a person's life. fortune-telling the practice of this. make a (or one's) fortune acquire wealth or prosperity. tell a person's fortune make predictions about a person's future. Etymology: ME f. OF f. L fortuna luck, chance

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Fortune For"tune, v. t. [OF. fortuner, L. fortunare. See Fortune, n.] 1. To make fortunate; to give either good or bad fortune to. [Obs.] --Chaucer. 2. To provide with a fortune. --Richardson. 3. To presage; to tell the fortune of. [Obs.] --Dryden.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Fortune For"tune, v. i. To fall out; to happen. It fortuned the same night that a Christian, serving a Turk in the camp, secretely gave the watchmen warning. --Knolles.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Fortune For"tune (f[^o]r"t[-u]n; 135), n. [F. fortune, L. fortuna; akin to fors, fortis, chance, prob. fr. ferre to bear, bring. See Bear to support, and cf. Fortuitous.] 1. The arrival of something in a sudden or unexpected manner; chance; accident; luck; hap; also, the personified or deified power regarded as determining human success, apportioning happiness and unhappiness, and distributing arbitrarily or fortuitously the lots of life. 'T is more by fortune, lady, than by merit. --Shak. O Fortune, Fortune, all men call thee fickle. --Shak. 2. That which befalls or is to befall one; lot in life, or event in any particular undertaking; fate; destiny; as, to tell one's fortune. You, who men's fortunes in their faces read. --Cowley. 3. That which comes as the result of an undertaking or of a course of action; good or ill success; especially, favorable issue; happy event; success; prosperity as reached partly by chance and partly by effort. Our equal crimes shall equal fortune give. --Dryden. There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. --Shak. His father dying, he was driven to seek his fortune. --Swift. 4. Wealth; large possessions; large estate; riches; as, a gentleman of fortune. Syn: Chance; accident; luck; fate. Fortune book, a book supposed to reveal future events to those who consult it. --Crashaw. Fortune hunter, one who seeks to acquire wealth by marriage. Fortune teller, one who professes to tell future events in the life of another. Fortune telling, the practice or art of professing to reveal future events in the life of another.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(fortunes) Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English. 1. You can refer to a large sum of money as a fortune or a small fortune to emphasize how large it is. We had to eat out all the time. It ended up costing a fortune... He made a small fortune in the London property boom. N-COUNT [emphasis] 2. Someone who has a fortune has a very large amount of money. He made his fortune in car sales... Having spent his rich wife's fortune, the Major ended up in a debtors' prison. N-COUNT: oft poss N 3. Fortune or good fortune is good luck. Ill fortune is bad luck. Government ministers are starting to wonder how long their good fortune can last. 4. If you talk about someone's fortunes or the fortunes of something, you are talking about the extent to which they are doing well or being successful. The electoral fortunes of the Liberal Democratic party may decline... The company had to do something to reverse its sliding fortunes. N-PLURAL: with poss 5. When someone tells your fortune, they tell you what they think will happen to you in the future, which they say is shown, for example, by the lines on your hand. PHRASE: V inflects

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

for'-tun (Gad): A god of Good Luck, possibly the Hyades.

See ASTROLOGY, 10.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Chance, accident, luck, hap, fortuity, casualty. 2. Livelihood, means of living. 3. Estate, substance, property, possessions. 4. Wealth, riches, opulence, affluence. 5. Destiny, fate, destination, doom, lot, star, future condition. 6. Event, issue, result. 7. Success, favorable issue.

Moby Thesaurus

Clio, Friday, Friday the thirteenth, Muse of history, accidentality, actuarial calculation, adventitiousness, adventures, affluence, annals, appointed lot, assets, astral influences, astrology, autobiography, beggared, biographical sketch, biography, blessing, bomb, boodle, book of fate, bottomless purse, break, bulging purse, bundle, calculated risk, case history, casualness, chance, chronicle, chronicles, chronology, circumstances, confessions, constellation, cup, curriculum vitae, destination, destiny, destitute, diary, dies funestis, doom, easy circumstances, embarras de richesses, end, estate, expectations, experiences, fatality, fate, felicity, flier, flukiness, foredoom, fortuitousness, fortuity, fortunateness, fortuneless, fortunes, future, gamble, gold, good fortune, good luck, hagiography, hagiology, handsome fortune, hap, happenstance, happy chance, happy fortune, hazard, heedless hap, high income, high tax bracket, historiography, history, holdings, how they fall, ides of March, impecunious, impoverished, independence, indeterminacy, indeterminateness, indigent, inevitability, journal, karma, kismet, law of averages, legend, life, life and letters, life story, lot, luck, luckiness, lucre, luxuriousness, mammon, martyrology, material wealth, means, memoir, memoirs, memorabilia, memorial, memorials, mint, moira, money, money to burn, moneybags, necrology, needy, obituary, opportunity, opulence, opulency, packet, pelf, penurious, photobiography, pile, planets, play, plunge, portion, position, possessions, pot, poverty-stricken, pretty penny, principle of indeterminacy, probability, problematicness, profile, property, prosperity, prosperousness, random sample, record, resources, resume, riches, richness, risk, roll, run of luck, serendipity, six-figure income, smiles of fortune, speculation, stars, statistical probability, story, substance, the breaks, theory of history, theory of probability, tidy sum, treasure, uncertainty, uncertainty principle, unlucky day, unprosperous, upper bracket, venture, wad, wealth, wealthiness, weird, whatever comes, wheel of fortune, will of Heaven, worth