fortune
Americannoun
-
position in life as determined by wealth.
It's not easy to make one's fortune from humble beginnings.
-
wealth or riches.
He lost a small fortune in bad investments.
-
great wealth; ample stock of money, property, and the like.
Those gems are worth a fortune.
-
chance; luck.
They each had the bad fortune to marry the wrong person.
- Synonyms:
- karma, kismet, providence, destiny, fate
-
fortunes. things that happen or are to happen to a person in their life.
Her charitable spirit stayed with her even as her fortunes changed with marriage.
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fate; lot; destiny.
Whatever my fortune may be, my faith will guide me.
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Fortune. chance personified, commonly regarded as a mythical being distributing arbitrarily or capriciously the lots of life.
Perhaps Fortune will smile on our venture.
-
good luck; success; prosperity.
The family was blessed by fortune.
-
Archaic. a wealthy woman; an heiress.
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
idioms
noun
-
an amount of wealth or material prosperity, esp, when unqualified, a great amount
-
a large sum of money
-
a power or force, often personalized, regarded as being responsible for human affairs; chance
-
luck, esp when favourable
-
(often plural) a person's lot or destiny
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of fortune
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English, from Old French, from Latin fortūna “chance, luck, fortune,” derivative of fort- (stem of fors ) “chance”
Explanation
A fortune can be a large amount of money, and fortune is a form of fate. So you want to have the good fortune to make a fortune during your career. Fortuna was the Roman goddess of fate and luck. She was sometimes depicted with a wheel, and the random spinning of her "wheel of fortune" became a symbol for the unpredictability of fate (and, much later, the title of a popular game show). A fortune teller can look into her crystal ball or tarot cards and predict your future. But her predictions are probably about as accurate as the "prophecy" that comes inside your fortune cookie.
Vocabulary lists containing fortune
The SAT: Multiple-Meaning Words, List 7
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The New SAT: Multiple-Meaning Words
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"Macbeth" Vocabulary from Act III
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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.
See Examples For:
“As gold is a symbol of strength and good fortune, I wanted him to remember the strong foundation he had and the bright future ahead.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 26, 2026
Chey’s fortune was calculated from a date before SK’s shares jumped in value.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
Roh relented in 2019 and demanded half of Chey’s fortune.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
People sit on top of the world one moment, and they experience a brutal reversal of fortune on the stock market the next.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 23, 2026
He has proposed marriage to her in the most flowery terms, but I am sure he is only after her fortune.
From "The Unseen Guest" by Maryrose Wood
Gucci is key to Kering's fortunes, but has been in freefall since 2023 as the brand lost its luxury cachet.
From Barron's ● Jul. 28, 2026
When these companies listed on exchanges outside China, the founders, early investors and employees minted fortunes in currencies that were outside China’s capital controls.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
Computer models are hinting at big contrasts in weather fortunes across different areas of the UK next week.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
Chad was a double-A first baseman with the Texas Rangers in 2009 and closely followed his dad’s fortunes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026
Even when all options seem to be gone, fortunes could change at any time.
From "Dry" by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman
In May 2015, already a very successful MLM seller, Igor Alberts was invited to a OneCoin event in Dubai, where he met lots of people, all apparently making fortuned with this new currency.
From BBC ● Nov. 23, 2019
Alfred Milner was born 71 years ago, the son of a modestly fortuned country physician.
From Time Magazine Archive
And it fortuned that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: The rich man also died, and was buried.
From The first New Testament printed in English by
Behold, The sower went out to sow, and it fortuned as he sowed, that some fell by the wayside, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up.
From The first New Testament printed in English by
I venture to think that Piracy has fortuned in this particular.
From Pirates by Fraser, Claud Lovat
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.
