fate
n. C / Un. a power that some people believe controls everything that happens in the future. It is the idea that your life follows a plan you cannot change.
n. the power or agency held to predetermine events; an inevitable outcome or destiny. Often personified in literary contexts as an external force governing human affairs.
She believes it was fate that they met.
The explorers met a tragic fate when their ship became trapped in the thick arctic ice.
While the protagonist struggles to assert his free will, the narrative structure suggests that his ultimate downfall is a matter of fate rather than a result of his specific choices.
From Middle English fate, from Latin fāta (“prediction”), plural of fātum, from fātus (“spoken”), from for (“to speak”). In this sense, displaced native Old English wyrd, whence Modern English weird.
Uncountable when referring to the abstract power of destiny; countable when referring to a specific person's final outcome or death.