Etymologically
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fate

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /feɪt/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian fato, in Middle English, and later directly Latin fātum “that which is spoken, destiny”,[2][3] or through Old French fate.[4][5][6] Latin fātum, “a prophetic declaration, oracle”, was literally “thing spoken (by the gods)”, the neuter past participle of fārī (“to speak”),[4][5][7] from PIE Proto-Indo-European *bha- (“to speak, tell, say”).[4] The plural fāta also gave Spanish hado, Portuguese fado and Italian fato.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The power that predetermines events, and the predestined lot of a person: about 1374 in the OED, about 1385 in Barnhart, in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde.[8][5]

Semantic evolution

In Latin the word was often used in a bad sense, “ill fortune, death”.[4] The Fates, the three goddesses of Greek and Roman myth who spun, measured and cut the thread of each life, are from 1590 in the OED,[8][7] and the final outcome of a person or thing, the fate of the expedition, from 1768–74.[8] Hoad notes the word was not common before the 16th century.[2] The verb meant to destroy about 1400, and to preordain from 1601.[8][4][6] Fateful is from 1715–20, in Pope's translation of the Iliad.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 1374 – the power that decides events.[8]
  • c. 1400 – the verb, to destroy.[8]
  • 1590 – the three Fates.[8]
  • 1601 – to preordain.[8]
  • 1715–20 – fateful.[5]
  • 1768–74 – the final outcome.[8]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. The power believed to decide events in advance; destiny.
  2. What happens to a person or thing in the end, especially death or ruin.
  3. (the Fates) In Greek and Roman mythology, the three goddesses who controlled human lives.

Verb

  1. (usually passive) To destine: they were fated to meet.

Word family

  • fatal
  • fatalism
  • fatality
  • fated
  • fateful
  • fate map
  • fable
  • fame
  • infant
  • preface
  • fairy

Usage notes

The AHD compares fate with destiny, kismet, lot and portion, nouns for what is bound to happen to a person; fate especially stresses the inevitability and often an unhappy end.[9]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin