fatalist
Americannoun
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a person who believes that all events are inevitable, so one’s choices and actions make no difference.
Protest or not, the odds seem stacked against the likelihood of change, so should we be fatalists and go off to the beach instead?
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Philosophy. a person who advances the idea that all events are naturally predetermined or subject to fate.
Despite his teaching that class conflict is inevitable, observers contend that Marx was not a fatalist about historical change.
adjective
Etymology
Origin of fatalist
First recorded in 1640–50; fatal(ism) ( def. ) + -ist ( def. )
Explanation
A fatalist is someone who feels that no matter what he or she does, the outcome will be the same because it's predetermined. Fatalists share a sense of being powerless to change the world. In philosophy, a fatalist is someone who holds specific beliefs about life, destiny, and the future. Fatalists share the certainty that fate has already been laid out in front of them, and that they have no real control over what will happen. Sometimes fatalists have a flat or unemotional reaction even to frightening circumstances because of these beliefs. The Latin root is fatalis, "ordained by fate or destined."
Vocabulary lists containing fatalist
The Book of Unknown Americans
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"On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau
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O Pioneers!
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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.
But I'm not a fatalist; if I were, I wouldn’t have written this book or spent my life trying to protect our country.
From Salon • Apr. 16, 2024
A former editor of Zoetrope magazine, she co-wrote the 2019 horticultural guide “Fruit Trees for Every Garden” — hardly the product of a fatalist.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 15, 2024
“This area has the lifestyle we like and the values we like,” he said, taking a fatalist view of natural hazards.
From Seattle Times • Jul. 9, 2023
And one of the things that’s important that I should throw in here is—I’m not a fatalist about this.
From Slate • Mar. 15, 2023
Mrs. Beaverbrook, the fatalist, practically burst into tears and said in a timid little voice, “Oh, it’s so awful. Oh, the guns are so loud!”—which is another way of saying “I’m so scared.”
From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
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.
