Doom

How to spell doom

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce doom

What does doom mean?

1. nounDeath, destruction, or a terrible and inevitable fate.
2. verbTo condemn someone or something to ruin, failure, or a terrible fate.

Doom in a sentence

• noun

  The failing company seemed headed for certain doom.

• verb

  One careless decision can doom an otherwise promising project.

• noun

  A sense of doom settled over the team after the layoffs were announced.

• verb

  Poor planning will doom the venture before it even begins.

Where does doom come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends straight from the Old English noun 'dom', which meant a judgement, a law, or a formal decree handed down by an authority. It belongs to a wider Germanic family and is closely related to the verb 'to deem', which still means 'to judge or consider'. For centuries 'dom' simply referred to a legal verdict, which is why the medieval survey of England compiled for William the Conqueror became known as the Domesday Book, the book against which there was no appeal. From the sense of a final, irreversible judgement the meaning darkened over time toward ruin, destruction, and a grim fate, and by the later medieval period 'doomsday' meant the Day of Judgement at the end of the world. The very same root also gives us the familiar suffix -dom, the condition or domain of something, as in kingdom and freedom. The spelling stayed compact and phonetic, so the only real point to remember is the double 'o'.

How the word is built

• doom (from Old English dom: judgement, law, decree); the same element survives as the suffix -dom in kingdom and freedom