Fateful

//ˈfeɪtfəl// adj

adj ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Momentous, significant, setting or sealing one’s fate.

    "It started with that fateful trip, history was never the same afterwards."

  2. 2
    Determined in advance by fate, fated.
Adjective
  1. 1
    controlled or decreed by fate; predetermined wordnet
  2. 2
    having momentous consequences; of decisive importance wordnet
  3. 3
    (of events) having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences; bringing ruin wordnet
  4. 4
    ominously prophetic wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
calamitousdecisiveinevitableportentousacuteapocalyptic

Example

More examples

"Parents try not to think about it, hoping that if they blot the children out, the fateful call or cable will never come."

Etymology

From fate + -ful.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.