destiny
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈdɛs.tɪ.ni/
Forms: form: destinies
Etymology: From Middle English destine et al., from Old French destinee, from Latin dēstinō (English destine). Displaced Old English wyrd.
Senses: examples: text: Death is the destiny of all mortal men.
text: Her death (April 18, 1881) left the Empress Ts‘ŭ Hsi, the playmate of her youth, the sole Regent of China, with the destiny of four hundred millions of human beings in her hands.
ref: 1914, Li Ung Bing, “The Second Joint Regency of the Empress”, in Joseph Whiteside, editor, Outlines of Chinese History, Shanghai: The Commercial Press, →OCLC, page 565:
synonyms: word: fate
word: lot
word: orlay
word: chance
word: destin
word: destiny
word: doom
word: fatality
word: fate
word: foredoom
word: foreordination
word: fortune
word: kismet
word: lot
word: orlay
word: portion
word: predestination
word: predestiny
word: preordination
word: qadar
word: weird
word: wyrd
glosses: That to which any person or thing is destined; a predetermined state; a condition predestined by the Divine or by human will.
examples: text: Ain't no use to fight it / Don't tamper with my destiny / Any way you slice it / I'm in the hands of fate, you see
ref: 1977, The Originals (group), “Been Decided”, in Down to Love Town:
glosses: That which is inevitable in the fullness of time.
examples: text: Everywhere the atom bombs are dropping / It's the end of all humanity / No more time for last-minute shopping / It's time to face your final destiny
ref: 1986, "Weird Al" Yankovic, “Christmas at Ground Zero”, in Polka Party!:
text: Suspended between two ancient trees in some woody wonderland, the nearby brook babblingly bubbling to itself, the gently cooling breezes sweeping away all things bothersome, we self-sway each other to our own rhythms, and all our manifest destinies are ahhhsome.
ref: 2016 June 27, Bernard Louis De Koven, “Hammocky Dreams”, in A Playful Path:
glosses: One's eventual fate (not necessarily inevitable or predestined).
examples: text: Dara doesn't believe in using dating apps - she insists that destiny will find her other half.
text: There were two kinds of beardom opposed here, two futures, two destinies.
ref: 1995, Philip Pullman, Northern Lights:
text: But it was much more than a mere ship. Its systems, processes, and technology were so advanced that they dwarfed every accomplishment of the Citadel species. Its grandeur and complexity rivaled the greatest creations of the Protheans—the mass relays and the Citadel. It may have even surpassed them. And if Saren could learn and understand how it worked, he could seize all that power for himself.
He’d spent his entire life preparing for a moment like this. Everything he’d ever done—his military service, his career with the Spectres—was only a prelude to this revelation. Now he had found his true purpose; destiny had led him here.
ref: 2007, Drew Karpyshyn, Mass Effect: Revelation (Science Fiction), Del Rey Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, pages 320–321:
synonyms: fate
glosses: The fixed order of things; invincible necessity; an irresistible power or agency conceived of as determining the future, whether in general or of an individual.
Derived terms: date with destiny
destinist
destinyless
manifest destiny
predestiny
Related terms: destinate
destination
destine
doom