[ad. L. fātum, lit. ‘that which has been spoken,’ neut. pa. pple. of fārī to speak. The primary sense of the L. word is a sentence or doom of the gods (= Gr. Θέσφατον); but it was subsequently used as the equivalent of the Gr. μοῖρα, which, originally meaning only a person’s ‘lot’ or ‘portion,’ had come to express the more abstract conception explained below (sense 1), and its personification as a mythological being.
Cf. OF. fat(e, Pr. fat, It. fato, Pg. fado, Sp. hado. (The pl. fāta gave rise in popular L. to the fem. sing. fāta fairy: for the Rom. forms of this see FAY sb.) The immediate source of the Eng. word is doubtful. Chaucer uses it in Troylus (where he translates from Boccaccio’s Italian), but in rendering the Latin of Boethius he uses only destiné.]
1. The principle, power, or agency by which, according to certain philosophical and popular systems of belief, all events, or some events in particular, are unalterably predetermined from eternity. Often personified.
The OE. synonym was wyrd: see WEIRD.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, V. 1550.
| The fate wold his soule shold unbodye, | |
| And shapen hadde a mene it out to dryve, | |
| Ayeins which fate hym helpeth not to stryve. |
1610. Shaks., Temp., I. i. 32. Stand fast good Fate to his hanging, make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our owne doth little aduantage.
1655–40. T. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1701), 191/1. Concerning Fate, Plato held thus: All things are in Fate, yet all things are not decreed by Fate.
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 232.
| When everlasting Fate shall yield | |
| To fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife. |
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 161. Fate, and the Laws or Commands of the Deity, concerning the Mundane Oeconomy (they being really the same thing).
1701. Rowe, Amb. Step-Moth., I. i.
| Mirz. Certainly Fate, | |
| Or somewhat like the force of Fate, was in it. |
1770. James Dance (James Love), Cricket, 24.
| Yet, whether Jove, and all-compelling Fate, | |
| In their high Will determin’d Kent should beat. |
1777. Priestley, Philos. Necess., Pref., 25. Fate was something that even the gods often endeavoured … to resist.
1807. Crabbe, The Parish Register, I. 106.
| In moles and specks we Fortune’s gifts discern, | |
| And Fate’s fixed will from Nature’s wanderings learn. |
a. 1848. R. W. Hamilton, Rem. & Punishm., viii. (1853), 345. The idea of fate sets us free from the sense of blame.
1875. Farrar, Silence & V., i. 11. What is He but a vast formless Fate?
b. fig.
1588. Shaks., Loves Labour’s Lost, V. ii. 68.
| So pertaunt like would I o’resway his state, | |
| That he shold be my foole, and I his fate. |
1701. Rowe, Amb. Step-Moth., IV. i.
| For know (Young King!) that I am Fate in Persia, | |
| And Life and Death depend upon my Pleasure. |
2. Mythol. a. The goddess of fate or destiny; in Homer Μοῖρα. b. pl. In later Greek and Roman mythology, the three goddesses supposed to determine the course of human life (Gr. Μοῖραι, L. Parcæ, Fata).
In Gr. the three Fates are called Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos; these names were adopted by Latin poets, but the mythologists give as native names Nona, Decuma, and Morta.
1590. Shaks., Mids. N., V. i. 199. Pir. … Like Limander am I trusty still. This. And [I] like Helen till the Fates me kill.
1709. Pope, January and May, 192.
| But, if her virtues prove the larger share, | |
| Bless the kind fates, and think your fortune rare. |
1794. Sullivan, View Nat., V. 338. Communities, like men, have been supposed to have a period of life, and a length of thread, which is spun by the fates in one part uniform and strong, in another weakened and shattered by use; and to be cut, when the destined æra is come, in order to make way for a renewal of the emblem in those who may arise in succession.
1828. Scott, F. M. Perth, xxx. Your slightest desires seem a law to the Fates.
1847. Tennyson, The Princess, II. 443.
| Men hated learned women: but we three | |
| Sat muffled like the Fates. |
3. That which is destined or fated to happen. a. gen. Also in pl. Predestined events.
1667. Milton, P. L., VII. 173.
| What I will is Fate. | |
| So spake th’ Almightie. |
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 737.
| Or, by the holy Butcher, if he fell, | |
| Th’ inspected Entrails cou’d no Fates foretel. |
1732. Pope, Ess. Man, I. 77.
| Heav’n from all creatures hides the book of Fate, | |
| All but the page prescrib’d, their present state. |
1849. G. P. R. James, The Woodman, vii. ’Tis the best way of meeting fate.
1865. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., XVI. i. There lay in the fates a Third Silesian War for him.
b. Of an individual, an empire, etc.: The predestined or appointed lot; what a person, etc. is fated to do or suffer.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, V. 209. He curseth … His byrthe, hym self, his fate, and ek nature.
1559. Mirr. Mag., Dk. of Clarence, lv.
| To flye theyr fate, they further on the same, | |
| Like quenching blastes, which oft reuive the flame. |
1603. B. Jonson, Sejanus, I. ii. How blest a fate were it to us.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., II. (1843), 57/2. By a very extraordinary fate [he had] got a very particular interest … in many worthy men.
1668. Lady Chaworth, in 12th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. V. 10. Mr. Ho … deserves a better fate.
a. 1717. Blackall, Wks. (1723), I. 25. It has been commonly their Fate to fare hardlier.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 164. The general fate of sects is to obtain a high reputation for sanctity while they are oppressed.
1848. S. C. Bartlett, Egypt to Pal., iv. (1879), 68. It is a noteworthy comment on the fate of human pride, that few of these tombs are completed.
c. In etymological sense: An oracle or portent of doom.
1850. Mrs. Browning, Poems, Rhyme of the Duchess May, II. 50.
| And the solemn knell fell in with the tale of life and sin, | |
| Like a rhythmic fate sublime. |
4. What will become of, or has become of (a person or thing); ultimate condition; destiny. Often in to decide, fix, seal one’s fate.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1852), I. 584. Nor yet do men keep always steady to this idea of Fate in their common conversation; for we often hear them talk of the Fate of a convict criminal lying in the hand of the Prince who has power to pardon or to order execution; the lover waits for the decision of his mistress to fix his Fate; the poet talks of physicians issuing mandates in arrest of Fate, and an unexpected accident or arrival of a timely succour is thought sometimes to change the Fate of a battle: whereas if we regard the genuine notion of Fate, it was fixed long ago by the decree of Heaven; nor is it in the power of man, nor any natural agent, to determine, or stop, or change, or affect it in any respect.
1793. Smeaton, Edystone L., § 322. I could not but feel the utmost anxiety for the fate of the Edystone.
1797. Mrs. Radcliffe, Italian, xii. If she is now discovered her fate is certain.
1838. Lytton, Leila, I. ii. The base misers … deserve their fate.
1841. Elphinstone, Hist. Ind., II. 581. It only remained to the brothers to decide on the fate of its tenant.
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng. (1858), I. ii. 163. He was obliged to bear the necessary fate of a minister, who, in a free country, had thwarted the popular will, and whom fortune deserted in the struggle.
1888. Bryce, Amer. Commw., III. xc. 246. More of it may share the same fate.
1891. E. Peacock, Narcissa Brendon, II. 142. Plumer’s fate was sealed.
b. Death, destruction, ruin.
c. 1430. Lydg., Bochas, III. xxvi. (1554), 97 b. Cyrus was passed into fate.
1635. Shirley, Coronat., IV. Will you assist, and run a fate with us?
1643. Denham, Cooper’s Hill, 114.
| In the Common Fate, | |
| The adjoyning Abby fell. |
1701. Rowe, Amb. Step-Moth., I. i.
| Cannot they add a few days to a Monarch, | |
| In recompence of thousand vulgar fates, | |
| Which their Drugs daily hasten? |
1852. Miss Yonge, Cameos, I. xl. 345. Their fate has been well sung by Lord Houghton:—
| ‘The warriors of the sacred grave, | |
| Who looked to Christ for laws, | |
| And perished for the faith they gave | |
| Their comrades and the cause. |
c. An instrument of death or destruction, poet.
1700. Dryden, Iliad, I. 73.
| Then with full Force his deadly Bowe he bent, | |
| Feather’d Fates among the Mules and Sumpters sent. |
1715–20. Pope, Iliad, I. 68.
| The fleet in view, he twang’d his deadly bow, | |
| And hyssing fly the feather’d fates below. |
5. attrib. and Comb. a. simple attrib., as fate-spell, also fate-like adj.; b. objective, as fate-denouncing, -foretelling, -scorning ppl. adjs.; c. instrumental, as fate-environed, -fenced (implied in fate-fencedness), -folden, -furrowed, -menaced, -stricken adjs.
1708. Ozell, trans. Boileau’s Lutrin, 48.
| When from his Powdry Roost the Bird of Night | |
| With *fate-denouncing Outcries takes his Flight. |
1835. Talfourd, Ion, II. i.
| Why should I waste these *fate-environ’d hours, | |
| And pledge my high defiance to despair | |
| With flatterers such as thou. |
1827. Hare, Guesses (1859), 80. His own *fate-fencedness, or, as he would call it, his luck.
1880. W. Watson, The Prince’s Quest, 93.
| A sea untraversed, an enchanted sea | |
| From all the world *fate-folden. |
1777. R. Potter, Æschylus, 173.
| The *fate-foretelling seer, Amphiaraus | |
| As th’ Omolæan gate his destin’d post | |
| Assumes in arms. |
1804. J. Grahame, The Sabbath, 329.
| Relentless Justice! with *fate-furrow’d brow! | |
| Wherefore to various crimes, of various guilt, | |
| One penalty, the most severe, allot? |
1860. O. W. Holmes, Elsie V., xv. The expression of the creatures [rattlesnakes] was … *fate-like.
1834. Wrangham, Homerics, 7. Knew’st thou what misfortunes lie, *Fate-menaced, on thine homeward way.
1850. Mrs. Browning, Poems, II. 282. Proud Œdipus, *fate-scorning.
a. 1618. Sylvester, Sonnets, iv.
| V nder that *Fate-spell onely are foreshowne | |
| E ternall praises which our pens shall chaunt-yee. |
1866. Swinburne, Poems and Ballads, To Victor Hugo (1868), 172.
| Shows us our greatest from his throne | |
| *Fate-stricken, and rejected of his own. |
