Fatality

[ad. F. fatalité, ad. late L. fātālitātem, f. fātālis FATAL: see -ITY.]

  1.  The quality or condition of being predetermined by or subject to fate or destiny; subjection to fate, as attributed to the universe generally; the agency of fate or necessity, conceived as determining the course of events.

a. 1631.  Donne, in Select. (1840), 83. We banish from thence, all imaginary fatality.

1665.  Glanvill, Scepsis Scientifica, 29. To suppose every action of the Will to depend upon a previous Appetite or Passion, is to destroy our Liberty, and to insert a Stoical Fatality with all the dangerous consequences of that Doctrine.

1678.  Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 7. The Will of Man may seem to be, to some, yet I conceive it to be out of Question, that it may contract upon it self such Necessities and Fatalities, as it cannot upon a suddain rid it self of at pleasure.

1692.  Bentley, Boyle Lect., i. 12. All about them is dark senseless Matter, driven on by the blind impulses of Fatality and Fortune.

1702.  The English Theophrastus, 276. Marriages are govern’d rather by an over-ruling Fatality, than any solemnity of Choice and Judgment.

1736.  Butler, Anal. I. vi. 147. A Fatality supposed consistent with what we certainly experience does not destroy the proof of an intelligent author and Governor of nature.

1768–74.  Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1852), I. 583. We get an obscure idea of an irresistible force, a something we cannot explain nor account for its existence, which we call a Fatality, which perpetually hangs over second causes, constraining their motions, or like an adamantine wall, confining them within their appointed course, from whence they would have a natural propensity to deviate.

  b.  fig.

1699.  Bentley, Phal., 299. If Critic had ever once smiled upon Mr B. or if there was not a kind of Fatality in his Errors, he could scarce have miss’d this most certain Correction.

1822.  Hazlitt, Table-t., Ser. II. iv. (1869), 83. There is a fatality about our affairs.

1834.  Medwin, Angler in Wales, II. 61–2. We all escaped except the Viceroy, who, as fatality would have it, was struck by one of the sticks on the top of his head, and almost scalped.

  c.  A decree of fate.

1763.  Tucker, Freewill, § 42. 192. If he sows oats in his field, does he think anything of a fatality against his reaping wheat or barley?

  d.  That which a person or thing is fated to; a destined condition or position, a destiny.

1589.  Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, II. (Arb.), 124. I took them both for a good boding, and very fatallitie to her Maiestie.

1603.  Florio, Montaigne, II. xxix. (1632), 398. No glaives nor arrows never hit, but by the permission of our fatalitie, which it lieth not in us to avoide or advance.

1648.  Sterry, The Clouds in which Christ Comes, 35. He cannot discerne the Times and their Changes, How, or Why they are; the Fatality of Persons and Kingdomes, their Periods.

1692.  R. L’Estrange, Fables, Old Man & Lion, 95. All the Father’s Precaution could not Secure the Son from the Fatality of Dying by a Lyon.

1860.  W. Collins, Wom. White, x. 52. Was there no possibility of speaking of Miss Fairlie and of me without raising the memory of Anne Catherick, and setting her between us like a fatality that it was hopeless to avoid?

  ¶ e.  Used for: Belief in fatality; fatalism.

1674.  Hickman, Historia Quinq-Articularis Exarticulata; or, Animadversions on Doctor Heylin’s Quintquarticular History (ed. 2), 14. I do not find him … charged with Fatality.

  2.  The condition of being doomed by fate; predestined liability to disaster.

1654.  A. Durham, in The Nicholas Papers (Camden), II. 116. Ther is a strange fatality mixt with a covetous rashnes attends all our intentiones and designes.

1769.  Junius, Lett. viii. 33. There [is] a fatality attending every measure you are concerned in.

1871.  H. Ainsworth, Tower Hill, III. v. A sad fatality had attended her family.

1873.  Symonds, Grk. Poets, vii. 190. This conception of hereditary destiny seems to be strongly illustrated by many plays. Orestes, Œdipus, Antigone are unable to escape their doom. Beautiful human heroism and exquisite innocence are alike sacrified to the fatality attending an accursed house.

  3.  The quality of causing death or disaster; fatalness; a fatal influence.

1490.  Caxton, How to Die, 21. Sathanas wyth all his cruelle fatallytees.

1646.  Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., IV. xii. 208. 7. times 9. or the yeare of sixty three … is conceived to carry with it, the most considerable fatality.

1706–7.  Farquhar, Beaux’ Strat., II. i. Love and Death have their Fatalities.

1793.  E. Darwin, in Beddoes, A Letter to Erasmus Darwin, 17 Jan., 62. By instituting other experiments with different kinds or proportions of airs, you will, at least, if your first experiments should not succeed to your utmost wish, hold out hopes to those unfortunate young men and women; who, if they knew the general fatality of their disease under the present modes of treatment, would despond at the commencement of it, or wish to try some new kind of medicine.

1839.  Bailey, Festus, xviii. (1848), 185.

1856.  Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xx. 245ú6. In the Polar zone the assault is immediate and sudden, and, unlike the insidious fatality of hot countries, produces its results rapidly.

  4.  A disastrous event; a calamity, misfortune.

1648.  Evelyn, Mem. (1857), III. 19 This was the tragedy of Tuesday…. Since this fatality, some talk of an inclination in Surrey to associate.

1678.  Marvell, Growth Popery, Wks. I. 463. Their interviews are usually solemnized with some fatality and disaster.

1815.  W. H. Ireland, Scribbleomania, 254–5, note. Yet while he [Erasmus] admired their [More’s daughters] improvement, and shared in the pleasures it diffused, he could not help remarking one day to his friend, how severe a calamity it would be, if, by any of those fatalities to which the human race is liable, such accomplished beings, whom he had so painfully and successfully laboured to improve, should happen to be snatched away!

1868.  E. Edwards, Raleigh, I. v. 83. A long series of fatalities ended in the wreck of two ships, and the nearly total loss of two crews.

  b.  A disaster resulting in death; a fatal accident or occurrence.

1840.  Barham, Ingol. Leg., Look at the Clock.

1861.  Times, 7 Oct. The only fatalities were the five above mentioned, while a large number were more or less injured.