fortune
Americannoun
-
fortunes
plural
-
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
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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:
He made his fortune in cement and sugar in Nigeria before expanding to 16 other African countries.
From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2026
That could put at risk Wilson’s fortune, estimated at roughly $6 billion, as well as the leverage he has over the athleisure company he founded.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026
While Root needed fortune, Jordan Cox once again impressed with a composed 59, a further claim for the Essex man to be in the XI for the first Test against South Africa in December.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026
Plenty of business scions have inherited a fortune and used it to make a slightly bigger hoard.
From Salon ● Sep. 6, 2026
A man’s good fortune can only last so long.
From "The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams" by Daniel Nayeri
Dangote's sprawling refinery on the outskirts of Lagos, which began operating two years ago and now processes around 700,000 barrels of crude a day, has transformed the fortunes of Nigeria's oil sector.
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026
Diametrically opposed to the doomers are the accelerationists, who believe in technology's advancement, its inevitability and its fundamental benefit for society -- and who also make their fortunes on its success.
From Barron's ● Sep. 15, 2026
For several weeks each year, ethnic Tibetans in this village pluck matsutake mushrooms, a flavorful fungus that is believed to boast medicinal properties—and can make fortunes in this less-developed corner of China.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 12, 2026
These more developed countries have served as a warning for Albania: What the locals here realize is that they still have time to approach their coastal fortunes differently.
From Slate ● Sep. 8, 2026
All the broken cookies and fortunes had disappeared except for one crumpled slip of paper.
From "The Mark of Athena" by Rick Riordan
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
But that fortuned that it might appear, that they were not of us.
From The first New Testament printed in English by
In the course of years it fortuned that Urania and Amyntas fell in love, and though misliking of the match, Pilumnus went so far as to consult the oracle concerning his daughter's dowry.
From Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration Stage in England by Walter W. Greg
Now it fortuned that the king was minded to wed his daughter Persis unto a neighboring prince, a high and mighty prince, but one whom Persis loved not, neither could she love.
From The Holy Cross and Other Tales by Eugene Field
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.
