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.
-
fate; lot; destiny.
Whatever my fortune may be, my faith will guide me.
-
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
Some people are going to make a fortune in the future using AI to pick stocks.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026
Under question was Chey’s roughly $5 billion fortune, which has doubled in value in recent years from the explosive growth of SK Hynix, a memory-chip maker and key partner to Nvidia.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
Cohen’s fortune allowed the Mets to have the highest payroll in the sport at the start of this season.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Christopher remembered the fortune teller and looked at Mal, who was vomiting on the pavement several feet away, scowling.
From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell
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
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
Together, Samsung Electronics 005930 0.58%increase; up pointing triangle and SK Hynix 000660 -0.33%decrease; down pointing triangle account for over half of the index, tying the broader market’s fortunes to the two semiconductor giants.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Many in Labour are optimistic that he can begin to turn around their fortunes after disastrous results in elections for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Senedd and councils across England.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
I only hope the fortunes and future of Rose Hill are as bright as my own.
From "Dread Nation" by Justina Ireland
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
As he went on his journey, it fortuned that he drew nigh to Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven.
From The first New Testament printed in English by
Ah, M. didn’t fortune right when she fortuned that.
From The Gypsies by Leland, Charles Godfrey
And it fortuned that he tarried many days in Ioppa with one Simon a tanner.
From The first New Testament printed in English by
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.
