doom

[doom]

noun

1. fate or destiny, especially adverse fate; unavoidable ill fortune.

   In exile and poverty, he met his doom.

2. ruin; death.

   to fall to one's doom.

3. a judgment, decision, or sentence, especially an unfavorable one.

   The judge pronounced the defendant's doom.

   Synonyms: fate, ruination, downfall, destruction

4. the Last Judgment, at the end of the world.

5. Obsolete.,  a statute, enactment, or legal judgment.

verb (used with object)

1. to destine, especially to an adverse fate.

   Synonyms: predestine, foreordain

2. to pronounce judgment against; condemn.

3. to ordain or fix as a sentence or fate.

doom

/ duːm /

noun

1. death or a terrible fate

2. a judgment or decision

3. (sometimes capital) another term for the Last Judgment

verb

1. (tr) to destine or condemn to death or a terrible fate

Other Word Forms

• doomy adjective
• predoom verb (used with object)

Word History and Origins

Origin of doom¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English dome, dōm, Old English dōm “judgment, law”; cognate with Old Norse dōmr, “judgment, sentence, court,” Gothic dōms “sentence, fame,” all from Germanic dômaz “what has been set,” from dôn “to set, place, do ¹ ( def. ) ”; compare Greek thémis “law” (i.e., “what has been set, laid down”); deem

Word History and Origins

Origin of doom¹

Old English dōm; related to Old Norse dōmr judgment, Gothic dōms sentence, Old High German tuom condition, Greek thomos crowd, Sanskrit dhāman custom; see _do ¹ , _deem , _deed , _-dom

Synonym Study

See fate.

Example Sentences

King Abdullah II of Jordan has warned that the Middle East is doomed unless there is a peace process leading to a Palestinian state.

Read more on BBC

Even as institutional expertise dooms the victim, it empowers the murderer, who has created a seemingly impenetrable alibi by taking advantage of the record-keeping intrinsic to large organizations.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Out pops the tongue—or, in this case, out pops a New York Times column uncritically linking the pathos of the Screen Actors Guild to the AI doom coming for all of humanity.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Fighting in this sensitive area was supposed to doom the hostages.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

“The Fate of Ophelia” describes a lover whose devotion saved Swift from meeting the same bleak end as Shakespeare’s doomed character in “Hamlet.”

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• calamity 
• cataclysm 
• catastrophe 
• disaster 
• downfall