predestinate
Americanverb (used with object)
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Theology. to foreordain by divine decree or purpose.
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Obsolete. to foreordain; predetermine.
adjective
verb
adjective
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predestined or foreordained
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theol subject to predestination; decided by God from all eternity
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of predestinate
1350–1400; Middle English predestinaten (v.) < Latin praedestinātus, past participle of praedestināre to appoint beforehand. See pre-, destine, -ate 1
Explanation
Something that's predestinate has been planned or arranged already — there's no way to change its outcome. Some religious observers believe that life is predestinate, willed by God. If you believe that people have free will, the ability to make decisions that change the course of their lives, then you don't agree that everything is predestinate. If, however, you think God or fate or nature has already determined what will happen to you, you believe in a predestinate life. This adjective comes from the Old French prédestiner, "ordain of God," from the Latin root praedestinare, "determine beforehand."
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:
I have recently learned that I am But a creature that moves In predestinate grooves.
From Time Magazine Archive
A rarer, more intense, more strictly predestinate genius has never been known to poetry.
From The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson
Wherefore one ought not to say that God is able not to predestinate one whom He has predestinated, taking it in a composite sense, thought, absolutely speaking, God can predestinate or not.
From Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) From the Complete American Edition by Saint Aquinas Thomas
That none be saued, but they are before predestinate.
From The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) by David Laing
Perhaps what I have called coldness is a predestinate and ancient endurance.
From George Bernard Shaw by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
And right now no one seems to posses the same sense of predestinated greatness that accompanied Warne, Murali and Tendulkar.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 5, 2011
“He hath predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto himself.”
From The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted by F. (Francis) Hodgson
Good-by, therefore, to poor Canova—whose gallery no longer needs detain his successor100 Jules, the predestinated novel thinker in marble! 5th Student.
From Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning by Myra Reynolds
These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number is so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished.
From Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors by James Freeman Clarke
These angels and men thus predestinated and foreordained are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number is so certain and definite that it can neither be increased nor diminished.”
From The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election by Robert Wallace
His existence appears as fashioned in essence and end by predestinating power, and the Eternal "takes the responsibility."
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 95, September 1865 by Various
Within it by Thy predestinating knowledge and might, He had set forth all that is essential and obligatory for the upraising of Thy Cause in this world below.
From Bahíyyih Khánum by Baha'i World Centre
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.
