fortune
Americannoun
-
fortunes
plural
-
position in life as determined by wealth.
It's not easy to make one's fortune from humble beginnings.
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wealth or riches.
He lost a small fortune in bad investments.
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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:
Buying a stake in Liverpool gives the 62-year-old a slice of one of the most iconic global sports brands for a small fraction of his fortune.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
But maybe you have a legacy plan or some other purpose for your fortune and want to preserve what you have now.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 14, 2026
Walter, 66 years old, built his fortune as one of the founders of bond manager and investment bank Guggenheim Partners in 1999.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
Bezos, 62, is one of the world's richest men, with a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at more than $280 billion, while Saverin's wealth is put at $33 billion.
From Barron's ● Aug. 10, 2026
After a while, the girls celebrated their good fortune by breaking into the provisions.
From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall
Not because they have a moral obligation to save the world, but because some of the biggest fortunes may be hiding in the problems they are ignoring.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
Martin’s fantasy world of Westeros in “House of the Dragon” is a particularly cruel place to be sensitive, whether to the declining fortunes of a kingdom or the machinations of the spirit world.
From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2026
But when it comes to the weather, fortunes will be mixed.
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026
The LSE’s Charlie Walker said a collective effort across regulators, government and U.K. companies is working to revive London’s fortunes, but capital is the missing piece.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
"I must read your fortunes before my trance breaks. And before the mini-marshmallows melt."
From "Case of the Sneaky Snowman: Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew, #5" by Carolyn Keene
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
This Getulian I say, fortuned to encounter a lion, and when he was violently assailed by him, made no more adoe but threw his mandilion or cassocke full upon his eies.
From Lives of Eminent Zoologists, from Aristotle to Linnæus with Introductory remarks on the Study of Natural History by William MacGillivray
It fortuned that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever, and of a bloody flux to whom Paul entered in and prayed, and laid his hands on him and healed him.
From The first New Testament printed in English by
It fortuned that the devil was already come to the place where he had appointed the appointment, and in his hand he had the booke aforesaid.
From The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) by Marshall Pinckney Wilder
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.
