[f. FORE- pref. + DOOM v.]
1. trans. To doom beforehand: a. to condemn beforehand (to a destiny, or to do something); b. to foreordain, predestine (a thing).
a. 1605. Shaks., Lear, V. iii. 291 (Qo. 2).
| Your eldest daughters haue fore-doom’d [Qo. 1 foredoome; Fol. foredone] themselues, | |
| And desperately are dead. |
1647. May, Hist. Parl., I. ii. 23. Some men, who being fore-doomed by an Oracle to a bad fortune, have runne into it by the same meanes they used to prevent it.
1715–20. Pope, Iliad, XVI. 545.
| How many Sons of Gods, foredoom’d to Death, | |
| Before proud Ilion, must resign their Breath! |
1808. J. Barlow, The Columbiad, IV. 19.
| O hapless prelate! hero, saint and sage, | |
| Foredoom’d with crimes a fruitless war to wage. |
1855. H. Reed, Lect. Eng. Hist., viii. 270. The tones of innocence and truth could find no entrance into the hearts of the ruthless judges who had foredoomed her.
1878. Bosw. Smith, Carthage, 150. His efforts were, for the present at least, foredoomed to failure, was yet content to sacrifice himself if only he might prepare the way for vengeance in the remoter future.
b. 1674. N. Fairfax, A Treatise of the Bulk and Selvedge of the World, 162. Foredooming that which is to be, and is not, till so foredoom’d.
1712–4. Pope, Rape Lock, III. 5.
| Here Britain’s statesmen oft the fall foredoom | |
| Of foreign tyrants, and of nymphs at home. |
1814. Southey, Roderick, XI.
| And many a field obscure, in future war | |
| For bloody theatre of famous deeds | |
| Foredoom’d. |
1844. Mrs. Browning, Drama of Exile, Poems (1850), I. 62.
| Had God foredoomed despair, | |
| He had not spoken hope. |
2. To determine beforehand as a doom; to forecast, foreshadow, presage.
c. 1592. Greene, George a Greene, Wks. (Rtldg.), 261/2.
| A wizer wizard never met you yet, | |
| Nor one that better could foredoom your fall. |
1818. Keats, Endym., I. 251.
| O thou, to whom | |
| Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom | |
| Their ripen’d fruitage. |
Hence Foredoomed ppl. a. Also Foredoomer.
1591. The Troublesome Raigne of King John, II. (1611), 75.
| Disturbed thoughts, foredoomers of mine ill | |
| Distracted passions. |
1700. Dryden, Palamon & Arcite, III. 636.
| At length, as Fate foredoom’d, and all things tend | |
| By Course of Time to their appointed End. |
1868. E. Edwards, Raleigh, I. xxv. 603. It led him now, in 1617, to face, with every power he had, the perils of a foredoomed enterprise.
