fortune
Americannoun
-
fortunes
plural
-
position in life as determined by wealth.
It's not easy to make one's fortune from humble beginnings.
-
wealth or riches.
He lost a small fortune in bad investments.
-
great wealth; ample stock of money, property, and the like.
Those gems are worth a fortune.
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chance; luck.
They each had the bad fortune to marry the wrong person.
- Synonyms:
- karma, kismet, providence, destiny, fate
-
fortunes. things that happen or are to happen to a person in their life.
Her charitable spirit stayed with her even as her fortunes changed with marriage.
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fate; lot; destiny.
Whatever my fortune may be, my faith will guide me.
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Fortune. chance personified, commonly regarded as a mythical being distributing arbitrarily or capriciously the lots of life.
Perhaps Fortune will smile on our venture.
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good luck; success; prosperity.
The family was blessed by fortune.
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Archaic. a wealthy woman; an heiress.
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
idioms
noun
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an amount of wealth or material prosperity, esp, when unqualified, a great amount
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a large sum of money
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a power or force, often personalized, regarded as being responsible for human affairs; chance
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luck, esp when favourable
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(often plural) a person's lot or destiny
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of fortune
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English, from Old French, from Latin fortūna “chance, luck, fortune,” derivative of fort- (stem of fors ) “chance”
Explanation
A fortune can be a large amount of money, and fortune is a form of fate. So you want to have the good fortune to make a fortune during your career. Fortuna was the Roman goddess of fate and luck. She was sometimes depicted with a wheel, and the random spinning of her "wheel of fortune" became a symbol for the unpredictability of fate (and, much later, the title of a popular game show). A fortune teller can look into her crystal ball or tarot cards and predict your future. But her predictions are probably about as accurate as the "prophecy" that comes inside your fortune cookie.
Vocabulary lists containing fortune
The SAT: Multiple-Meaning Words, List 7
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The New SAT: Multiple-Meaning Words
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"Macbeth" Vocabulary from Act III
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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.
See Examples For:
Ranked Estonia’s wealthiest person by local media, with an estimated $12 billion fortune, he’s funded AI safety initiatives with about $170 million, according to a list he published of his donations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
Williams was watching the stream on a television as his wife and son were getting ready for bed when a life-changing fortune became theirs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
However, Tiffany said the new version meant "more people are going to get to see this show and not have to pay a fortune for it", according to The Stage.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026
The problem is that everything they do costs a fortune.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 23, 2026
"So it would look like Deirdre's fortune came true!"
From "Case of the Sneaky Snowman: Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew, #5" by Carolyn Keene
Fabled camera maker Leica has revived its fortunes partly by taking control of its distribution from dealers and capturing some of the lucrative secondhand market for its product.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026
Many of those fans had come from all corners of the world, and had spent or borrowed fortunes to make it, just to say: "I was there."
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2026
Abrams plays the goofball well and we’re constantly rooting for him, even as his fortunes take a turn in a tragic reversal that we’ve seen in monster movies before.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
“The Cosby Show” represents massive, transformative success, not only to the sitcom genre itself and NBC’s prime-time fortunes, but in its capacity as a symbol of middle-class possibility.
From Salon ● Apr. 27, 2018
He’d charge them fat fees to get in and out of their credit default swaps, of course, but these would prove trivial compared to the fortunes they stood to make.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
In May 2015, already a very successful MLM seller, Igor Alberts was invited to a OneCoin event in Dubai, where he met lots of people, all apparently making fortuned with this new currency.
From BBC ● Nov. 23, 2019
Alfred Milner was born 71 years ago, the son of a modestly fortuned country physician.
From Time Magazine Archive
Being thus left to our fortunes, it fortuned that within ten days scarce ten amongst vs could either goe, or well stand, such extreame weaknes and moknes oppressed vs.
From Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 by Francis W. (Francis Whiting) Halsey
When he came unto a grece, it fortuned that he was borne of the soldiers for the violence of the people.
From The first New Testament printed in English by
As for the king, when things fortuned thus, he was completely bewildered, and plainly showed his sore vexation and tumult of soul.
From Barlaam and Ioasaph by Saint John of Damascus
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.
