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:
But why should students and teachers have to rely on good fortune and courageous passersby for security?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
That means Musk’s fortune equates to roughly 3.1% of the entire national economy — a higher percentage than any American before him.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 9, 2026
The common link seems to be Daisy Wolcott, a wealthy eccentric who devoted her life and fortune to the discovery and preservation of obscure vegetation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
The Westons were ranked fifth on this year's Sunday Times Rich List with a combined fortune of almost £19bn.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
Then she sailed back to her low table and quickly got rid of the fortune seeker who was there.
From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan
So what is the reason for the shift in fortunes since his own fans called for his dismissal?
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026
However, their fortunes appear to have changed dramatically as the Cretaceous continued.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 14, 2026
Korea’s stock-market fortunes are often taken as a proxy by investors for the AI trade as a whole.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 13, 2026
"Love it, hate it, or fear it, AI is here, rapidly becoming a key driver of countries' relative fortunes in the world economy," said Georgieva last week.
From Barron's ● Oct. 11, 2026
"Do you believe it? Almost all of my fortunes are coming true!"
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
I venture to think that Piracy has fortuned in this particular.
From Pirates by Claud Lovat Fraser
As he went on his journey, it fortuned that he drew nigh to Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven.
From The first New Testament printed in English by
Thus they passed upon their ways until it fortuned that this knight returned to his own house.
From Aucassin & Nicolette And Other Mediaeval Romances and Legends by Eugene Mason
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
