destiny

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Fate

Nouns

1. destiny, future state, next world, world to come (see futurity).

2. fate, kismet, God's will, act of God, the will of God or Allah; Karma; doom, determinism, fatalism, predestination, predetermination, necessity, inevitability; luck, star, lot, fortune, destination; a cross to bear, a row to hoe; wheel of fortune, spin or turn of the wheel, fall of the dice or cards, the way the cookie crumbles, fickle [finger of] fortune; the mills of the gods; hour of destiny.

3. the Fates, Parcae, weird sisters, Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos; Lady Fortune.

4. fatalist, predestinarian, Calvinist.

Verbs

1. (lie in the future) impend, hang or lie over, loom, approach, stare one in the face.

2. (intend for the future) ordain, foreordain, preordain; [pre]destine, doom, have or lie in store.

Adjectives

1. destined, impending, fated, about to be or happen, coming, in store, to come, instant, at hand, near; near or close at hand; overhanging, hanging over one's head, imminent, fateful; in the wind, in the cards, in the lap of the gods, in the offing, in reserve; in prospect, expected (see expectation), looming in the distance or future or on the horizon; inevitable.

2. fatalistic, determinalist, deterministic.

Adverbs

1. in time, in the long run; all in good time; eventually, whatever may happen, as chance or luck would have it.

2. fatally, fatalistically, imminently, etc.; in the hands of fate, in the lap of the gods, in God's hands; out of luck, in luck; by chance.

Phrases — fate can be taken by the horns, like a goat, and pushed in the right direction; man proposes, God disposes; what goes up must come down; it is written; what must be must be; che sarà sarà; c'est la vie; c'est la guerre.

Quotations — There's a divinity that shapes our ends (Shakespeare), Our manifest destiny is to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions (John O'Sulli-van), This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny (F D. Roosevelt), The destiny of countries depends on the way they feed themselves (Anthelme Brillat-Savarin), The destiny of the colored America... is the destiny of America (Frederick Douglass), I am obliged to state it: for the black man there is only one destiny. And it is white (Frantz Fanon), [Destiny is] a tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure (Ambrose Bierce).

Antonyms, see chance, choice, will.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

1. [Fate as a power]

Syn. fate, predetermination, predestination, decree, finality, conclusion, foreordination, decrees of fate, course of events, inevitability, doom, certainty, fatality, condition, divine decree, book of fate, future, the Fates, destined way, ordinance, kismet, fortune, luck, karma, inevitable necessity, God's will, providence, Fortune, serendipity, happenstance, wheel of fortune, the stars, Dame Fortune, will of heaven, Sisters Three, Weird Sisters, Ides of March, Hobson's choice, the lap of the gods; see also chance 1 , fate .

2. [Fate as a personal future]

Syn. fate, fortune, lot, end; see doom 1 .

See Synonym Study at fate .

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) n.

fate, lot, destination, future, design, doom, predestination, serendipity, fortune, karma, *wheel of fortune. ''A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.''—Ambrose Bierce. ''Not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.''— William Jennings Bryan. ''An invention of the cowardly and the resigned.''—Ignazio Silone.

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun That which is inevitably destined: fate, fortune, kismet, lot, portion, predestination. See CERTAIN.