Fateful

How to spell fateful

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce fateful

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fateful mean?

1. adjectiveHaving far-reaching and usually disastrous consequences; decisively important.

Fateful in a sentence

• The board made a fateful decision to expand just before the market collapsed.

• A single fateful email cost her the entire contract.

Where does fateful come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word is built from 'fate' plus the adjective-forming suffix '-ful', meaning 'full of' or 'marked by'. 'Fate' itself comes from the Latin fatum, which literally meant 'that which has been spoken', the past participle of the verb fari, 'to speak'. The idea was that destiny was a pronouncement of the gods, a thing decreed aloud, so a person's fate was a kind of verdict already uttered. The noun reached English through Old French and Italian during the 1300s, and the adjective 'fateful' was coined in English in the 1700s to describe events carrying decisive, often calamitous, importance. The same Latin fari for 'speak' also lies behind words such as 'fame' and 'preface', a reminder that fate began as something simply said.

How the word is built

• fate (from Latin fatum: that which has been spoken, destiny)
• -ful (full of, characterised by)