doom
Americannoun
-
fate or destiny, especially adverse fate; unavoidable ill fortune.
In exile and poverty, he met his doom.
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to fall to one's doom.
-
a judgment, decision, or sentence, especially an unfavorable one.
The judge pronounced the defendant's doom.
- Synonyms:
- fate, ruination, downfall, destruction
-
the Last Judgment, at the end of the world.
-
Obsolete. a statute, enactment, or legal judgment.
verb (used with object)
-
to destine, especially to an adverse fate.
- Synonyms:
- predestine, foreordain
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to pronounce judgment against; condemn.
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to ordain or fix as a sentence or fate.
noun
-
death or a terrible fate
-
a judgment or decision
-
(sometimes capital) another term for the Last Judgment
verb
Related Words
See fate.
Other Word Forms
- doomy adjective
- predoom verb (used with object)
Etymology
Origin of doom
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
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.
The day after the SEC filed suit, Lopez posted on X: “Never doom. No matter how horrible the situation, don’t ever think you’re doomed. Unless you are dead, all defeat is psychological.”
AI is here, and even those on the frontier seem uncertain whether it is our savior or doom.
On the other hand, TPUSA’s night was doomed from the get-go.
From Salon
But his sophomore season ultimately fell just short of being truly historic as a slow start doomed Maye's bid to lift the Lombardi Trophy.
From Barron's
It isn’t just that they don’t know how, it’s that they’ve fallen in love with the doom loop.
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.
