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destinies |
2 definitions found From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Destiny \Des"ti*ny\, n.; pl {Destinies}. [OE. destinee, destene, F. destin['e]e, from destiner. See {Destine}.] 1. That to which any person or thing is destined; predetermined state; condition foreordained by the Divine or by human will fate; lot doom. Thither he Will come to know his destiny. --Shak. No man of woman born, Coward or brave, can shun his destiny. --Bryant. 2. The fixed order of things invincible necessity; fate; a resistless power or agency conceived of as determining the future, whether in general or of an individual. But who can turn the stream of destiny? --Spenser. Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny. --Longfellow. {The Destinies} (Anc. Myth.), the three Parc[ae], or Fates; the supposed powers which preside over human life, and determine its circumstances and duration. Marked by the Destinies to be avoided. --Shak. From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Fate \Fate\, n. [L. fatum a prophetic declaration, oracle, what is ordained by the gods, destiny, fate, fr fari to speak: cf OF fat. See {Fame}, {Fable}, {Ban}, and cf 1st {Fay}, {Fairy}.] 1. A fixed decree by which the order of things is prescribed; the immutable law of the universe; inevitable necessity; the force by which all existence is determined and conditioned. Necessity and chance Approach not me and what I will is fate. --Milton. Beyond and above the Olympian gods lay the silent, brooding, everlasting fate of which victim and tyrant were alike the instruments. --Froude. 2. Appointed lot allotted life; arranged or predetermined event; destiny; especially, the final lot doom; ruin; death. The great, th'important day big with the fate Of Cato and of Rome. --Addison. Our wills and fates do so contrary run That our devices still are overthrown. --Shak. The whizzing arrow sings, And bears thy fate, Antinous, on its wings. --Pope. 3. The element of chance in the affairs of life; the unforeseen and unestimated conitions considered as a force shaping events; fortune; esp., opposing circumstances against which it is useless to struggle; as fate was or the fates were against him A brave man struggling in the storms of fate. --Pope. Sometimes an hour of Fate's serenest weather strikes through our changeful sky its coming beams. --B. Taylor. 4. pl [L. Fata, pl of fatum.] (Myth.) The three goddesses, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, sometimes called the {Destinies}, or {Parc[ae]}who were supposed to determine the course of human life. They are represented, one as holding the distaff, a second as spinning, and the third as cutting off the thread. Note: Among all nations it has been common to speak of fate or destiny as a power superior to gods and men -- swaying all things irresistibly. This may be called the fate of poets and mythologists. Philosophical fate is the sum of the laws of the universe, the product of eternal intelligence and the blind properties of matter. Theological fate represents Deity as above the laws of nature, and ordaining all things according to his will -- the expression of that will being the law. --Krauth-Fleming. Syn: Destiny; lot doom; fortune; chance.
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