fortune
Americannoun
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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.
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good luck; success; prosperity.
The family was blessed by fortune.
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Archaic. a wealthy woman; an heiress.
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
idioms
noun
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an amount of wealth or material prosperity, esp, when unqualified, a great amount
-
a large sum of money
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a power or force, often personalized, regarded as being responsible for human affairs; chance
-
luck, esp when favourable
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(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
After leaving professional campaign consulting in the mid-1990s, and making a substantial fortune in real estate, Reilly gave prolifically to various charities and assorted civic caucuses.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 26, 2026
They also form a partnership and set out to make their fortune and save the planet with a tidal-energy company that they claim will “power our civilization by slinging a yoke around the moon.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
There, again, if enough people pick stocks at random, some of them will make a fortune through sheer chance.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026
Why had Quinzy gone to so much trouble to bring this fortune hunter and his ostrich to Ashton Place?
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
Although near-term growth expectations are downbeat, Nike’s fortunes appear to be turning.
From The Wall Street Journal ● 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
In many cases, it wasn’t the internet that changed their fortunes, but financial restructurings involving private equity that turned fulfillment protocol away from customer service and toward speed and efficiency.
From Salon ● Jul. 18, 2026
Or was it just more of the same parceling out of fortunes that had brought us this far, to this place where our path would finally divide into two?
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
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
Being thus left to our fortunes, it fortuned that within ten days scarce ten amongst vs could either goe, or well stand, such extreame weaknes and moknes oppressed vs.
From Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 by Halsey, Francis W. (Francis Whiting)
The seconde gentylman, whanne he came to bedde, fortuned to fynde the same rynge, and whan he hadde stayde som tyme departed.
From Shakespeare Jest-Books Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed to Have Been Used by Shakespeare by Hazlitt, William Carew
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.
