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
I had found my predestinate, Become a faithful wife and e'en A fond and careful mother been.
From Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] A Romance of Russian Life in Verse by Henry Spalding
But the human will does not exist in the abstract world of reasoned science, in the world of atoms and vibrations, that rigidly predestinate scheme of things in space and time.
From Anticipations Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human life and Thought by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren.”
From The Gospel Day Or, the Light of Christianity by Charles Ebert Orr
"Whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son."
From Natural Law in the Spiritual World by Henry Drummond
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
And trust me, if meet they did, there'd meet a couple predestinated to fall in love.
From Trevethlan: (Vol 2 of 3) A Cornish Story. by William Davy Watson
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
Those 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 The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted by F. (Francis) Hodgson
I wonder whether such demons ever enter into human beings, and, in the shape of living men, haunt, plague, and ruin their predestinated victims.”
From Checkmate by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
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
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