Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Causing or capable of causing death.
- adjective Causing ruin or destruction; disastrous.
- adjective Of decisive importance; fateful.
- adjective Concerning or determining one's fate.
- adjective Obsolete Having been destined; fated.
from The Century Dictionary.
- 1. Proceeding from or decreed by fate or destiny; inevitable; fated.
- Fraught with fate; influencing or deciding fate; fateful.
- Foreboding or associated with disaster or death; ominous.
- Causing or attended with death or destruction; deadly; mortal; destructive; disastrous; ruinous: as, a fatal accident.
- Doomed; cursed.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective rare Proceeding from, or appointed by, fate or destiny; necessary; inevitable.
- adjective rare Foreboding death or great disaster.
- adjective Causing death or destruction; deadly; mortal; destructive; calamitous
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Proceeding from, or
appointed by,fate ordestiny . - adjective
Foreboding death or greatdisaster . - adjective Causing death or
destruction - adjective computing Causing a sudden end to a program.
- noun A
fatality ; an event that leads todeath . - noun computing A fatal
error ; afailure that causes aprogram toterminate .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective controlled or decreed by fate; predetermined
- adjective bringing death
- adjective having momentous consequences; of decisive importance
- adjective (of events) having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences; bringing ruin
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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This is what I call a fatal flaw for this candidate.
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Cardinal, accused him of prevarication and weakness, and threw himself at her Majesty's feet, conjuring her in the name of the King her son, not to authorise, by an example which he called fatal, the insolence of a subject who was for wresting favours from his sovereign, sword in hand.
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Prescott reports a case of what he calls fatal colic from the lodgment of a chocolate-nut in the appendix; and Noyes relates an instance of death in a man of thirty-one attributed to the presence of a raisin-seed in the vermiform appendix.
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Prescott 12.195 reports a case of what he calls fatal colic from the lodgment of a chocolate-nut in the appendix; and Noyes 12.196 relates an instance of death in a man of thirty-one attributed to the presence of a raisin-seed in the vermiform appendix.
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Page 340, footnote 3. _idem etiam_, etc.: he says also that Jupiter is the power of this law, eternal and immutable, which is the guide, so to speak, of our life and the principle of our duties; a law which he calls a fatal necessity, an eternal truth of future things.
Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero W. Warde Fowler 1884
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In an interview with People magazine granted shortly after her husband made it through his famously contentious confirmation hearings, Ginni said, What [Anita Hill] did was so obviously political…Her allegations…remind me of the movie Fatal Attraction, or in her case, what I call the fatal assistant.
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Cardinal, accused him of prevarication and weakness, and threw himself at her Majesty's feet, conjuring her in the name of the King her son, not to authorise, by an example which he called fatal, the insolence of a subject who was for wresting favours from his sovereign, sword in hand.
The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz — Complete [Historic court memoirs] Jean Fran��ois Paul de Gondi de Retz 1646
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Cardinal, accused him of prevarication and weakness, and threw himself at her Majesty's feet, conjuring her in the name of the King her son, not to authorise, by an example which he called fatal, the insolence of a subject who was for wresting favours from his sovereign, sword in hand.
The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz — Volume 3 [Historic court memoirs] Jean Fran��ois Paul de Gondi de Retz 1646
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Eventually, vomiting, diarrhea and rash develop, the kidneys and liver may stop functioning, and, in fatal cases, uncontrollable internal and external bleeding begins, resulting in the vomiting of blood and bleeding from the eyes, ears, nose and other orifices.
A treatment for Ebola? ewillett 2010
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Eventually, vomiting, diarrhea and rash develop, the kidneys and liver may stop functioning, and, in fatal cases, uncontrollable internal and external bleeding begins, resulting in the vomiting of blood and bleeding from the eyes, ears, nose and other orifices.
A treatment for Ebola? ewillett 2010
tbtabby commented on the word fatal
Means "annoying" in German.
July 13, 2009
bilby commented on the word fatal
Nominalisation:
"It’s tragic that it’s taken a fatal to bring it on to the radar because we have been lobbying for so long but it has fallen on deaf ears,” he said.
- Robert Armstrong, quoted in Hobart Mercury, 29 Oct 2015, http://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/deadly-lack-of-action-on-narrow-bridge-on-channel-highway/story-fnj4f7k1-1227586120716?sv=d5464476b1d27971baf55911543f08c8
October 29, 2015