fateful
Americanadjective
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having momentous significance or consequences; decisively important; portentous.
a fateful meeting between the leaders of the two countries.
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fatal, deadly, or disastrous.
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controlled or determined by destiny; inexorable.
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prophetic; ominous.
adjective
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having important consequences; decisively important
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bringing death or disaster
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controlled by or as if by fate
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prophetic
Related Words
See ominous.
Other Word Forms
- fatefully adverb
- fatefulness noun
Etymology
Origin of fateful
Explanation
A fateful moment is one that seems impossible to avoid. And when a fateful event occurs, it feels like it will have a big impact on your future — and usually not in a good way. “I can fit my head into this jar!” — fateful words that resulted in a trip to the hospital. Most of the time, fateful spells disaster. There was the fateful day you left your guinea pig’s cage door open, and there are fateful decisions that seem innocent at the time, but come back to haunt you later. Fate is the idea that your life is mapped out, and a fateful instance is one significant landmark on that map.
Vocabulary lists containing fateful
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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I Am Malala
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Island of the Blue Dolphins
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Long before Cherny pressed send on that fateful message, Anthropic’s founders had chosen a counterintuitive strategy that would come to define the company.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 21, 2026
One fateful September afternoon, I received a message on Upwork.
From Slate • Mar. 20, 2026
“This fateful operation will continue as long as necessary, and it requires patience,” Netanyahu said.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 1, 2026
Their fateful assignment was depicted in the 2018 movie A Private War, with the actor Jamie Dornan playing Conroy.
From BBC • Mar. 1, 2026
“What happened next was that my great-grandfather uttered the fateful words ‘I will now saw my lovely wife in half and put her back together again, for I am Hiram Elefante the Great.’”
From "Louisiana's Way Home" by Kate DiCamillo
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
