Fates

British

/ feɪts /

plural noun

Greek myth the three goddesses who control the destinies of the lives of man, which are likened to skeins of thread that they spin, measure out, and at last cut See Atropos Clotho Lachesis
Norse myth the Norns See Norn 1

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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.

Hadn’t I seen the villagers on The Mountain succumb to their fates all my life?

From Literature

The fates of farmers, investment managers, banks and governments are indirectly tethered to the quality of the assets held as margin by brokerage and clearing firms.

From Barron's

Entertaining as Mr. Powell can be, the film doesn’t make us root for Becket; his life is going well enough without the inheritance, and his cousins, uncle and aunt aren’t awful enough to deserve their fates.

From The Wall Street Journal

Sam Heathcote, the PE teacher who has been a hero of Macclesfield's FA Cup run, was the victim of the fates this great tournament can inflict along with its glory when he headed Aaron Hickey's cross into his own net.

From BBC

Though their stunt fails — yet succeeds for us as a piece of guerrilla filmmaking wizardry — it spurs Johnson toward an even crazier notion: time traveling in an RV to 2008 to change their fates and secure their inevitable fame.

From Los Angeles Times

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023