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.
Fa"tal*ism (?), n. [Cf. F. fatalisme.] The doctrine that all things are
subject to fate, or that they take place by inevitable necessity.
Fa"tal*ist (?), n. [Cf. F. fataliste.] One who maintains that all
things happen by inevitable necessity.
Fa`tal*is"tic (?), a. Implying, or partaking of the nature of,
fatalism.
Fa*tal"i*ty (?), n.;pl. Fatalities (#). [L. fatalitas: cf. F. fatalitÈ]
1. The state of being fatal, or proceeding from destiny; invincible
necessity, superior to, and independent of, free and rational control.
The Stoics held a fatality, and a fixed, unalterable course of
events.
South.
2. The state of being fatal; tendency to destruction or danger, as if
by decree of fate; mortaility.
The year sixty-three is conceived to carry with it the most
considerable fatality.
Ser T. Browne.
By a strange fatality men suffer their dissenting.
Eikon Basilike.
3. That which is decreed by fate or which is fatal; a fatal event.
Dryden.
Fa"tal*ly (?), adv. 1. In a manner proceeding from, or determined by,
fate. Bentley.
2. In a manner issuing in death or ruin; mortally; destructively; as,
fatally deceived or wounded.
Fa"tal*ness, n. Quality of being fatal. Johnson.
||Fa"ta Mor*ga"na (?). [It.; -- so called because this phenomenon was
||looked upon as the work of a fairy (It. fata) of the name of Morg·na.
||See Fairy.] A kind of mirage by which distant objects appear
||inverted, distorted, displaced, or multiplied. It is noticed
||particularly at the Straits of Messina, between Calabria and Sicily.
Fat"back` (?), n. (Zoˆl.) The menhaden.
Fat"-brained` (?), a. Dull of apprehension.
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 ParcÊwho 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.
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.
Fat"ed (?), p. p. & a. 1. Decreed by fate; destined; doomed; as, he was
fated to rule a factious people.
One midnight Fated to the purpose.
Shak.
2. Invested with the power of determining destiny. [Obs.] "The fated
sky." Shak.