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fortune - 7 dictionary results

for⋅tune

[fawr-chuhn] noun, verb, -tuned, -tun⋅ing.
–noun
1. position in life as determined by wealth: to make one's fortune.
2. wealth or riches: to lose a small fortune in bad investments.
3. great wealth; ample stock of money, property, and the like: to be worth a fortune.
4. chance; luck: They each had the bad fortune to marry the wrong person.
5. fortunes. things that happen or are to happen to a person in his or her life.
6. fate; lot; destiny: whatever my fortune may be.
7. (initial capital letter) chance personified, commonly regarded as a mythical being distributing arbitrarily or capriciously the lots of life: Perhaps Fortune will smile on our venture.
8. good luck; success; prosperity: a family blessed by fortune.
9. Archaic. a wealthy woman; an heiress.
–verb (used with object)
10. Archaic. to endow (someone or something) with a fortune.
–verb (used without object)
11. Archaic. to chance or happen; come by chance.
12. tell someone's fortune, to profess to inform someone of future events in his or her own life; foretell.

Origin:
1250–1300; ME < OF < L fortūna chance, luck, fortune, deriv. of fort- (s. of fors) chance


for⋅tune⋅less, adjective


4. fate, destiny, providence; kismet, karma. 7. Moira; Lady Luck.
for·tune   (fôr'chən)   
n.  
    1. The chance happening of fortunate or adverse events; luck: He decided to go home for the holidays, and his fortune turned for the worse.
    2. fortunes The turns of luck in the course of one's life.
    3. Success, especially when at least partially resulting from luck: No matter what they tried, it ended in fortune.
    4. A person's condition or standing in life determined by material possessions or financial wealth: She pursued her fortune in another country.
    5. Extensive amounts of material possessions or money; wealth.
    6. A large sum of money: spent a fortune on the new car.
    7. Fate; destiny: told my fortune with tarot cards.
    8. A foretelling of one's destiny.
    1. A person's condition or standing in life determined by material possessions or financial wealth: She pursued her fortune in another country.
    2. Extensive amounts of material possessions or money; wealth.
    3. A large sum of money: spent a fortune on the new car.
    4. Fate; destiny: told my fortune with tarot cards.
    5. A foretelling of one's destiny.
  1. often Fortune A hypothetical, often personified force or power that favorably or unfavorably governs the events of one's life: We believe that Fortune is on our side.
    1. Fate; destiny: told my fortune with tarot cards.
    2. A foretelling of one's destiny.
v.   for·tuned, for·tun·ing, for·tunes

v.   tr.
  1. Archaic To endow with wealth.
  2. Obsolete To ascribe or give good or bad fortune to.
v.   intr. Archaic
To occur by chance; happen.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin fortūna; see bher-1 in Indo-European roots.]

Fortune

For"tune\ (f[^o]r"t[-u]n; 135), n. [F. fortune, L. fortuna; akin to fors, fortis, chance, prob. fr. ferre to bear, bring. See Bear to support, and cf. Fortuitous.]

1. The arrival of something in a sudden or unexpected manner; chance; accident; luck; hap; also, the personified or deified power regarded as determining human success, apportioning happiness and unhappiness, and distributing arbitrarily or fortuitously the lots of life.

'T is more by fortune, lady, than by merit. --Shak.

O Fortune, Fortune, all men call thee fickle. --Shak.

2. That which befalls or is to befall one; lot in life, or event in any particular undertaking; fate; destiny; as, to tell one's fortune.

You, who men's fortunes in their faces read. --Cowley.

3. That which comes as the result of an undertaking or of a course of action; good or ill success; especially, favorable issue; happy event; success; prosperity as reached partly by chance and partly by effort.

Our equal crimes shall equal fortune give. --Dryden.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. --Shak.

His father dying, he was driven to seek his fortune. --Swift.

4. Wealth; large possessions; large estate; riches; as, a gentleman of fortune.

Syn: Chance; accident; luck; fate.

Fortune book, a book supposed to reveal future events to those who consult it. --Crashaw.

Fortune hunter, one who seeks to acquire wealth by marriage.

Fortune teller, one who professes to tell future events in the life of another.

Fortune telling, the practice or art of professing to reveal future events in the life of another.

Fortune

For"tune\, v. t. [OF. fortuner, L. fortunare. See Fortune, n.]

1. To make fortunate; to give either good or bad fortune to. [Obs.] --Chaucer.

2. To provide with a fortune. --Richardson.

3. To presage; to tell the fortune of. [Obs.] --Dryden.

Fortune

For"tune\, v. i. To fall out; to happen.

It fortuned the same night that a Christian, serving a Turk in the camp, secretely gave the watchmen warning. --Knolles.
Language Translation for : fortune
Spanish: fortuna, suerte,
German: das Glück, das Schicksal,
Japanese:

fortune 
c.1300, "chance, luck as a force in human affairs," from O.Fr. fortune (12c.), from L. fortuna, from fors (gen. fortis) "chance, luck," from PIE base *bhrtis-. Often personified as a goddess; her wheel betokens vicissitude. Sense of "owned wealth" first found in Spenser; probably it evolved from senses of "one's condition or standing in life," hence "position as determined by wealth," then "wealth itself." Soldier of fortune first attested 1661. The fortune cookie (1962) is said to have been invented in 1918 by David Jung, Chinese immigrant to America who established Hong Kong Noodle Co., who handed out cookies that contained uplifting messages as a promotional gimmick. Fortune 500 "most profitable American companies" is 1955, from the list published annually in "Fortune" magazine. Fortunate Islands "mythical abode of the blessed dead, in the Western Ocean," 1432, translates L. Fortunatæ Insulæ.

fortune

see make a fortune.

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