fatal
Americanadjective
-
causing or capable of causing death; mortal; deadly.
a fatal accident;
a fatal dose of poison.
- Antonyms:
- life-giving
-
causing destruction, misfortune, ruin, or failure.
The withdrawal of funds was fatal to the project.
- Synonyms:
- devastating, catastrophic, calamitous, disastrous, ruinous
-
decisively important; fateful.
The fatal day finally arrived.
-
proceeding from or decreed by fate; inevitable.
a fatal series of events.
-
influencing or concerned with fate; fatalistic.
-
Obsolete. condemned by fate; doomed.
-
Obsolete. prophetic.
adjective
-
resulting in or capable of causing death
a fatal accident
-
bringing ruin; disastrous
-
decisively important; fateful
-
decreed by fate; destined; inevitable
Usage
What does fatal mean? Fatal literally means deadly—capable of causing death.Similar words are deadly, lethal, and mortal—though they are often used in different ways.Fatal can also be used in a figurative way to mean capable of causing the destruction, ruin, or failure of someone or something, as in Failing to update their products proved to be a fatal mistake for the company. Example: These changes will hopefully greatly reduce the number of fatal car accidents that occur on highways.
Related Words
Fatal, deadly, lethal, mortal apply to something that has caused or is capable of causing death. Fatal may refer to either the future or the past; in either case, it emphasizes inevitability and the inescapable—the disastrous, whether death or dire misfortune: The accident was fatal. Such a mistake would be fatal. Deadly looks to the future, and suggests that which is likely to cause death (though not inevitably so): a deadly poison, disease. Like deadly, lethal looks to the future but, like many other words of Latin origin, suggests a more technical usage: a lethal dose; a gas that is lethal. Mortal looks to the past and refers to death that has actually occurred: He received a mortal wound. The disease proved to be mortal.
Other Word Forms
- fatalness noun
- nonfatal adjective
- nonfatally adverb
- nonfatalness noun
- quasi-fatal adjective
- quasi-fatally adverb
Etymology
Origin of fatal
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English or directly from Old French, from Latin fātālis “ordained by fate, decreed”; fate, -al 1
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.
Her illness can be fatal and I understand that, for the royal family, Mette-Marit's health overshadows everything.
From BBC
In recent days, the Justice Department has resisted launching civil rights investigations into two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis by federal immigration agents.
From Los Angeles Times
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have sharply criticised tactics used by immigration agents in the wake of the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last weekend.
From BBC
After years of denials, the health board recently admitted that issues with its water systems were probably linked to infections, some of which were fatal.
From BBC
A video of Pretti being pushed to the ground by ICE officers in a protest 11 days before his fatal shooting was released earlier this week.
From Salon
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.
