fateful
Americanadjective
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having momentous significance or consequences; decisively important; portentous.
a fateful meeting between the leaders of the two countries.
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fatal, deadly, or disastrous.
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controlled or determined by destiny; inexorable.
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prophetic; ominous.
adjective
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having important consequences; decisively important
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bringing death or disaster
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controlled by or as if by fate
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prophetic
Synonym Usage
See ominous.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of fateful
Explanation
A fateful moment is one that seems impossible to avoid. And when a fateful event occurs, it feels like it will have a big impact on your future — and usually not in a good way. “I can fit my head into this jar!” — fateful words that resulted in a trip to the hospital. Most of the time, fateful spells disaster. There was the fateful day you left your guinea pig’s cage door open, and there are fateful decisions that seem innocent at the time, but come back to haunt you later. Fate is the idea that your life is mapped out, and a fateful instance is one significant landmark on that map.
Vocabulary lists containing fateful
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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I Am Malala
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Island of the Blue Dolphins
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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.
That fateful Thursday is approaching — the day when millions of American families gather in their homes for a traditional fall harvest meal, sometimes with a side dish of awkwardness and argument.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 11, 2026
The trauma of that fateful day has never gone away and Lee believes it triggered anxiety.
From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026
I mentioned here—on the fateful day of Sept. 8—that the era’s most important story was unfolding disproportionately outside the mainstream media.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
But his voice tyrannically resounds with sadistic orders and conservative cultural commentary during the second-act flashback scene, in which a fateful day on the set of the show changes the lives of Ronika and Blair.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2026
Travelers to the village were rare, but occasionally a peddler would come through the village, selling "penny dreadful" accounts of grisly murders, fateful encounters, dire doings and remarkable escapes.
From "Stardust" by Neil Gaiman
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
