fatalistic
Americanadjective
-
demonstrating a belief that all events are inevitable, so one’s choices and actions make no difference.
Fear, uncertainty, and a feeling of powerlessness contribute to a fatalistic attitude among many refugees when it comes to seeking justice.
-
Philosophy. advancing the idea that all events are naturally predetermined or subject to fate.
A fatalistic view, which denies the possibility of free will, makes some sense scientifically.
Other Word Forms
- fatalistically adverb
- nonfatalistic adjective
- quasi‐fatalistic adjective
- quasi‐fatalistically adverb
- unfatalistic adjective
- unfatalistically adverb
Etymology
Origin of fatalistic
Explanation
Use the adjective fatalistic to describe someone who believes outcomes are determined in advance and can't be changed. If you think there’s no way you can pass your math exam and studying won’t change anything, then you’re fatalistic. When you pronounce fatalistic, you can hear the word fate. That’s a clue that fatalistic is in some way related to fate — as in destiny. A fatalistic person believes in destiny: whatever is meant to happen will happen. Fatalistic often relates to bad things. If someone has a fatalistic attitude toward a situation, chances are that means the person is expecting things to turn out badly and sees no point in trying to change that outcome.
Vocabulary lists containing fatalistic
To Kill a Mockingbird
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The Diary of a Young Girl
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In the Time of the Butterflies
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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.
Still, he urged students not to be fatalistic about it.
From Barron's • Mar. 30, 2026
They’re a rejoinder to all the fatalistic commentary about tanking and how “being bad to get better” is an accepted reality of the NBA.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 2, 2026
If anything, such a war has been eerily normalized in our collective consciousness and we’ve become remarkably numb to and fatalistic about it.
From Salon • Dec. 7, 2025
Mays, in the time I’ve known him, has been realistic rather than fatalistic.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 4, 2025
Immediately upon their arrival, they would follow the contractor’s directions, start working—rarely resting—seemingly driven by a fatalistic sense that work which had to be done was best done as quickly as possible.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
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.
