Other forms: fates
Fate is the future that some believe is already written. Accept your fate, a cruel fate, tempt fate.
It implies that the outcome is fixed whatever anybody does, which is what separates it from luck. The Fates in Greek myth were three sisters who spun, measured and cut the thread of each life. Tempt fate means to invite disaster by saying how well things are going. Note fated; and that fate literally means a thing spoken — the gods' pronouncement.
1nounfateThe future held to be already decided.
“Nobody knows what fate has in store for us.”
fate is a predetermined future.
Also accepted in games: destiny
Latin fatum means a thing spoken, from fari, to speak. Fame, infant and fable come from the same speaking, and fate displaced the Old English wyrd, which survives as weird.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰeh₂-
Latin
fāta — prediction
Middle English
fate
English, today
fate
Built from
From Middle English fate, from Latin fāta (“prediction”), plural of fātum, from fātus (“spoken”), from for (“to speak”). In this sense, displaced native wyrd, whence Modern English weird.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA