doom
n. uncountablen. a feeling or situation where something very bad, like death or total failure, is certain to happen. It is often used to describe a dark future that you cannot avoid.
n. an inevitable state of ruin, death, or misfortune. Often used in literary or dramatic contexts to describe a destiny that cannot be escaped.
The dark clouds filled me with a sense of doom.
Despite the team's best efforts, a feeling of impending doom hung over the office as the bankruptcy deadline approached.
The protagonist's tragic flaw ensures his ultimate doom, creating a narrative arc where every attempt at salvation only hastens his inevitable downfall.
From Middle English doom, dom, from Old English dōm (“judgement”), from Proto-West Germanic dōm, from Proto-Germanic dōmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰóh₁mos. Cognates Compare Dutch doem (“condemnation, doom; judgement”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish dom (“judgement”), Faroese and Icelandic dómur (“judgement”), Gothic 𐌳𐍉𐌼𐍃 (dōms, “insight, judgement”); also Ancient Greek θωμός (thōmós, “heap”), Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, and Ukrainian ду́ма (dúma, “thought”), Polish duma (“pride”). Doublet of duma. See also deem.
Commonly appears in the phrase 'sense of doom' or 'impending doom'.