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
- predestinately adverb
Etymology
Origin of predestinate
1350–1400; Middle English predestinaten (v.) < Latin praedestinātus, past participle of praedestināre to appoint beforehand. See pre-, destine, -ate 1
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.
About a century and half later, even the wise Defoe wrote in his London plague novel that Turks and Mahometans “professed predestinating Notions, and of every Man’s End being predetermined.”
From New York Times
She thanked and complimented him warmly, but without being very much astonished at his success, for she began to think he was predestinated.
From Project Gutenberg
I looked into their faces, grown at once grave and predestinate; the shadow was there, a cloud upon their brows, a veil across the brightness of their eyes.
From Project Gutenberg
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 Project Gutenberg
"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate."
From Project Gutenberg
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.
