a. Also 4 fathel, 5–6 Sc. fatell, 6–7 fatall. [ad. L. fātāl-is, f. fātum FATE. Cf. Fr. fatal.]
† 1. Allotted or decreed by fate or destiny; destined, fated. Const. to, unto. Obs.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, V. 1.
| Aprechen gan the fathel destyne, | |
| That Joves hath in disposicioune. |
c. 1430. Lydg., Bochas, IV. xiv. (1554), 114 a.
| Was neuer seyne prince nor pryncesse | |
| That more proudly toke their fatal dethe. |
1513. Douglas, Æneis, XI. Proloug, 178.
| Exemple takis of this prynce Enee, | |
| That, for his fatale cuntre, of behest | |
| Sa feill dangeris sustenit on land and see. |
c. 1610. Sir J. Melvil, Mem. (1683), 67. It appeared to be fatal to him, to like better of flatterers and ill Company than plain speakers and good Men: Which hath been the wrack of many Princes, who by frequenting good Company would have proved gallant Men.
1658. Rowland, Moufet’s Theat. Ins., 909. Being obnoxious to showres and very much rain, a thing fatall to Islands, do yeeld such extraordinary pure honey, that it hath not the least mixture of venome, and doth last a long time before it be corrupted or putrified.
1663–78. Butler, Hud., I. iii. 530.
| It was | |
| Still fatal to stout Hudibras, | |
| In all his feats of arms, when least | |
| He dreamt of it to prosper best. |
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 103.
| And with perpetual inrodes to allarme, | |
| Though inaccessible, his fatal Throne. |
1713. Bentley, Collins’ Free-thinking, I. xxvi. 52. It’s fatal to our Author, ever to blunder when he talks of Egypt.
† 2. Condemned by fate; doomed. Const. to.
1509. Hawes, The Pastime of Pleasure, VII. ii.
| More lyker was her habitacyon | |
| Unto a place which is celestiall, | |
| Than to a certayne mancion fatall. |
c. 1592. Marlowe, The Massacre at Paris, I. iv.
| Now have we got the fatal, straggling deer, | |
| Within the compass of a deadly toil. |
1602. Warner, Alb. Eng., X. liv. (1612), 242.
| To it the Guizian Scot, | |
| Fatall to Seaes of bloodm and to | |
| Her owne by earned lot. |
a. 1634. Randolph, Amyntas, IV. viii.
| Long like a fatall oake, at which great Jove | |
| Levels his thunder. |
1668. Davenant, Man’s the Master, III. i. She, whose fatal and unexperienc’d heart too soon believ’d thy many oaths.
3. Of the nature of fate; resembling fate in mode of action; proceeding by a fixed order or sequence; inevitable, necessary.
1605. Camden, Rem., 33. As though … fatall necessitie concurred … with voluntary motion in giving the name.
1610. Healey, St. Augustine, Of the Citie of God, V. ix. (1620), 198. What auailes the subsequence: Nothing is without a cause, but euery cause is not fatall, because there are causes of chance, nature and will?
1663. J. Spencer, Prodigies (1665), 134. Nature is a blind and fatal Agent.
1751. Jortin, Serm. (1771), II. i. 14. We must not charge our transgressions upon a fatal necessity.
1863. Hawthorne, Our Old Home, 114. What a hardy plant was Shakspeare’s genius, how fatal its development.
1874. Mivart, Contemporary Evolution, in The Contemporary Review, XXIV. Oct., 776. ‘Instinct’ is ‘fatal’ but blind. Reason is ‘fatal,’ but sees.
4. Concerned or dealing with destiny. Of agents: Controlling the destinies of men. (The) fatal dames, ladies, sisters: the Fates, or Parcæ. The fatal thread: that supposed to be spun by the Fates, determining the length of a man’s life; so fatal web, fatal shears.
1447. Bokenham, Seyntys (Roxb.), 8. Not to hastyly My fatal threed a sundyr smyte.
1552. Huloet, Fatal ladies, parcæ.
1592. R. D., Hypnerotomachia, 9 b. Abiding the proofe of their paine and the cutting in Sunder of their fatall thread.
1622. Fletcher, Spanish Curate, IV. v. Fatall Dames, that spin mens threds out.
1624. Heywood, Gunaik., I. 45. The Parcæ (or fatall Goddesses) are three.
1704. S. Dale, in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden), 210. Death cut the fatal thread of life.
1708. Pope, Ode St. Cecilia, 94.
| How wilt thou now the fatal sisters move? | |
| No crime was thine, if ’tis no crime to love. |
a. 1721. M. Prior, Turtle & Sparrow, 56.
| Nor Birds nor Goddesses can move | |
| The just Behests of Fatal Jove. |
1880. Brewer, Reader’s Hand-bk., 323/2. The three Fatal Sisters were Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos.
† b. Prophetic. Obs.
1503. Hawes, The Example of Virtue, vii. 129.
| And also Poets, that were fatal, | |
| Craftily coloured, with cloudy figures, | |
| The true sentence of all their scriptures. | |
| Ibid. (1509), Past. Pleas., VIII. iii. | |
| Theyr [the poets’] obscure reason, fayre and sugratife, | |
| Pronounced trouthe under cloudy figures, | |
| By the inventyon of theyr fatall scriptures. |
1614. Raleigh, Hist. World, II. 393. They … taking direction … from the fatall Bookes, burned alive two men.
1635. Cowley, Davideis, I. 917.
| But as he [Balaam] went his fatal Tongue to sell, | |
| His ass taught him to speak, God to speak well. |
† c. Foreboding or indicating mischief; ominous.
1500. Marlowe, 2nd Pt. Tamburl., IV. iii.
| Die like beasts, and fit for naught | |
| But perches for the black and fatal ravens. |
1591. Shaks., 1 Hen. VI., III. i. 195.
| And now I feare that fatall Prophecie, | |
| Which in the time of Henry, nam’d the Fift, | |
| Was in the mouth of euery sucking Babe, | |
| That Henry borne at Monmouth should winne all, | |
| And Henry borne at Windsor, loose all. |
1628. Wither, Brit. Rememb., 35.
| Such fatall Fowles | |
| As croking Ravens, and loud screeching Owles? |
1658. Willsford, Natures Secrets, 173. For seven nights after his death, there was heard hideous howling…, fatal Birds screaking in their Cities. Ibid., 188. These fatal Meteors are great motives to humble Man, to make him repent.
5. Fraught with destiny; fateful. Often with mixture of 6 or 7.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Man of Law’s T., 163. The woful day fatal is come.
c. 1430. Lydg., Bochas, I. viii. (1544), 13.
| Her father had a fatall heer that shone | |
| Bryghter then golde, in which he did assure, | |
| Manly to fight ayenst his mortall fone. |
c. 1470. Henry the Minstrel, Wallace, IV. 294. With out respyt cummyn was thair fatell houris.
1548. Hall, Chron., 115. The fatall daie of her obstinacie was come.
1612. Monniepennie, Abr. Chron., in Misc. Scot., I. 7. Who transported the marble fatall chayre to Westminster.
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 725.
| Had not the Snakie Sorceress that sat | |
| Fast by the Hell Gate, and kept the fatal Key. |
1713. Addison, Cato, I. iii.
| O think what anxious moments pass between | |
| The birth of plots, and their last fatal periods. | |
| Oh! ’tis a dreadful interval of time, | |
| Fill’d up with horror all, and big with death! |
1828. Scott, F. M. Perth, xix. The fatal spot where the unlucky Bonnet-maker’s body was lying.
1863. Kinglake, Crimea (1876), I. xi. 179. In these same fatal days the Emperor Nicholas did much to bring his good faith into question.
6. Producing or resulting in death, destruction, or irreversible ruin, material or immaterial; deadly, destructive, ruinous. Const. to. Also in phrase to prove fatal (to).
1514. Barclay, Cyt. & Uplondyshm. (Percy Soc.), 10.
| But wolde to Jhesu they hadde ben wyse, and ware | |
| From that fatal fruyte which kyndled all theyr care. |
1685–8. Roxb. Ball., VII. 454.
| I that have never offended, you judge me guilty to stand! | |
| O that my sorrows were ended, by the most fatalest hand! |
1692. Dryden, St. Evremont’s Ess., 24. Suspicions, fatal to the Merit of Strangers.
1732. Arbuthnot, Rules of Diet, iv. 369. A Palsy … when it seizeth the Heart, or Organs of Breathing, [is] fatal; because Life cannot be continued a Moment without the Use of those Parts.
1759. Robertson, Hist. Scot., I. II. 87. His death was fatal to the Catholic religion, and to the French interest in Scotland.
1781. Cowper, Charity, 144.
| And each endures, while yet he draws his breath, | |
| A stroke as fatal as the scythe of Death. |
1791. Mrs. Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest, i. A removal in her present state must be fatal.
1803. Med. Jrnl., X. 315. Influenza … is by no means a fatal disease.
1838. Thirlwall, Greece, V. 80. The Spartan power had suffered a fatal blow.
1862. H. Spencer, First Princ., I. ii. § 14 (1875), 43. To carry away this conclusion, however, would be a fatal error.
Mod. A fatal accident occurred on Monday.
b. Of a weapon, bait, etc.: Sure to kill, deadly.
1599. Shaks., Hen. V., V. ii. 17.
| Your eyes which hitherto haue borne | |
| In them against the French that met them in their bent, | |
| The fatall Balls of murthering Basiliskes. |
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), VII. 293. A crooked sting … that fatal instrument which renders this insect so formidable.
1879. R. Jefferies, Wild Life in a Southern County, 358. A gudgeon is a fatal bait. Nothing is so certain to take.
7. The hyperbolical use of the word in sense 6 gives rise to a weakened sense: Causing serious harm, disastrous, gravely mischievous.
Cf. F. fatal, which is often used in a trivial manner unknown in English.
1681. Dryden, Abs. & Achit., 146.
| Some, by their Monarch’s fatal mercy grown, | |
| From Pardon’d Rebels, Kinsmen to the Throne | |
| Were raised in Pow’r and Publick Office high. |
1758. S. Hayward, Serm., xvii. 513. It appears to be incredible, did not fatal experience too much shew it.
1794. S. Williams, Vermont, 181. The constancy and perpetuity of their wars, had also a fatal influence on population.
1845. Carlyle, Cromwell (1871), I. Introd., 42. The poor King himself soon after died; left the matter to develop itself in other still fataler ways.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. 371. Never would such disasters have befallen the monarchy but for the fatal law which [etc.].
1862. Mrs. Browning, Last Poems, Ld. Walter’s Wife, x.
| At which he rose up in his anger.—‘Why, now, you no longer are fair! | |
| Why, now, you no longer are fatal, but ugly and hateful, I swear.’ |
8. Comb. with pr. and pa. pples., as fatal-looking also (quasi-adv.) in fatal-boding, -plotted.
1588. Shaks., Tit. A., II. iii. 47.
| Seest thou this Letter, take it vp I pray thee, | |
| And giue the King this fatall plotted Scrowle. |
1594. Lodge, Wounds Civ. War, III. i., in Hazl., Dodsley, VII. 149.
| From the oak, | |
| Leafless and sapless through decaying age, | |
| The screech-owl chants her fatal-boding lays. |
1839. Carlyle, Chartism, i. The melancholy fact remains, that this thing known at present by the name Chartism does exist; has existed; and, either ‘put down,’ into secret treason, with rusty pistols, vitriol-bottle and match-box, or openly brandishing pike and torch (one knows not in which case more fatal-looking), is like to exist till quite other methods have been tried with it.
† 9. sb. in pl. Fatal persons or things. The three Fatals: the three Fates or Parcæ. Obs.
1560. Rolland, The Court of Venus, II. 556.
| Bot wald ȝe to the thre fatales persew. | |
| Ibid., II. 985. | |
| And sa I gat nocht of thir Fatallis thre: | |
| Bot bad me pas, stand to my destinie. |
1652. Gaule, Πῦς-μαντία, the Mag-astro-mancer, 162. Providence is in the ordering of casuals, as well as fatals.
