fortune

[ fawr-chuhn ]
See synonyms for: fortunefortunedfortuningfortuneless on Thesaurus.com

noun
  1. position in life as determined by wealth: It's not easy to make one's fortune from humble beginnings.

  2. wealth or riches: He lost a small fortune in bad investments.

  1. great wealth; ample stock of money, property, and the like: Those gems are worth a fortune.

  2. chance; luck: They each had the bad fortune to marry the wrong person.

  3. 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.

  4. fate; lot; destiny: Whatever my fortune may be, my faith will guide me.

  5. Fortune. chance personified, commonly regarded as a mythical being distributing arbitrarily or capriciously the lots of life: Perhaps Fortune will smile on our venture.

  6. good luck; success; prosperity: The family was blessed by fortune.

  7. Archaic. a wealthy woman; an heiress.

verb (used with object),for·tuned, for·tun·ing.
  1. Archaic. to endow (someone or something) with a fortune.

verb (used without object),for·tuned, for·tun·ing.
  1. Archaic. to chance or happen; come by chance.

Idioms about fortune

  1. tell someone's fortune, to profess to inform someone of future events in their own life; foretell.

Origin of fortune

1
First recorded in1250–1300; Middle English, from Old French, from Latin fortūna “chance, luck, fortune,” derivative of fort- (stem of fors ) “chance”

Other words for fortune

Other words from fortune

  • for·tune·less, adjective

Words Nearby fortune

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use fortune in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for fortune

fortune

/ (ˈfɔːtʃən) /


noun
  1. an amount of wealth or material prosperity, esp, when unqualified, a great amount

  2. small fortune a large sum of money

  1. a power or force, often personalized, regarded as being responsible for human affairs; chance

  2. luck, esp when favourable

  3. (often plural) a person's lot or destiny

verb
  1. archaic

    • (tr) to endow with great wealth

    • (intr) to happen by chance

Origin of fortune

1
C13: from Old French, from Latin fortūna, from fors chance

Derived forms of fortune

  • fortuneless, adjective

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with fortune

fortune

see make a fortune.

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.