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View synonyms for doom

doom

[ doom ]

noun

  1. fate or destiny, especially adverse fate; unavoidable ill fortune:

    In exile and poverty, he met his doom.

  2. to fall to one's doom.

  3. a judgment, decision, or sentence, especially an unfavorable one:

    The judge pronounced the defendant's doom.

    Synonyms: fate, ruination, downfall, destruction

  4. the Last Judgment, at the end of the world.
  5. Obsolete. a statute, enactment, or legal judgment.


verb (used with object)

  1. to destine, especially to an adverse fate.

    Synonyms: predestine, foreordain

  2. to pronounce judgment against; condemn.
  3. to ordain or fix as a sentence or fate.

doom

/ duːm /

noun

  1. death or a terrible fate
  2. a judgment or decision
  3. sometimes capital another term for the Last Judgment


verb

  1. tr to destine or condemn to death or a terrible fate

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Other Words From

  • doom·y adjective
  • pre·doom verb (used with object)

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Word History and Origins

Origin of doom1

First recorded before 900; Middle English dome, dōm, Old English dōm “judgment, law”; cognate with Old Norse dōmr, “judgment, sentence, court,” Gothic dōms “sentence, fame,” all from Germanic dômaz “what has been set,” from dôn “to set, place, do 1( def ) ”; compare Greek thémis “law” (i.e., “what has been set, laid down”); deem

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Word History and Origins

Origin of doom1

Old English dōm; related to Old Norse dōmr judgment, Gothic dōms sentence, Old High German tuom condition, Greek thomos crowd, Sanskrit dhāman custom; see do 1, deem , deed , -dom

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Synonym Study

See fate.

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Example Sentences

When summer comes, adult beetles attack and larva feed in the cambium layer, girdling the trees and sealing their doom.

Many view it as a man drawn to his doom by his infatuation for a younger woman, and youth in general.

When we step into that cylinder of dry air and certain doom, all we can think is what it will be like when it crashes.

And that may doom any shot Hillary Clinton has at the presidency.

Thankfully, I have a high-speed Internet connection, so my doom window was but fleeting.

He breathed fierce and honest anathema on the heads of the bowelless fiends who had abandoned the babe to its doom.

For Tony certainly acknowledged by his attitude the same threatening sense of doom that lay so heavy upon his cousin's heart.

Let us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom!"

Daily the effort to escape this doom; to push away the threat of that painful point will increase.

Only half convinced and full of suspicion, the Sultan walked on in a daze, as though he were going to his last doom.

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doolydoom and gloom