Word Direct Answers

What does "fortune" mean?

Fortune: That which befalls or is to befall one; lot in life, or event in any particular undertaking; fate; destiny; as, to tell one's fortune. You, who men's fortunes in their faces read. Cowley.

Additional senses

  1. 2.That which comes as the result of an undertaking or of a course of action; good or ill success; especially, favorable issue; happy event; success; prosperity as reached partly by chance and partly by effort. Our equal crimes shall equal fortune give. Dryden. There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Shak. His father dying, he was driven to seek his fortune. Swift.
  2. 3.Wealth; large possessions; large estate; riches; as, a gentleman of fortune. Fortune book, a book supposed to reveal future events to those who consult it. Crashaw. - Fortune hunter, one who seeks to acquire wealth by marriage. -- Fortune teller, one who professes to tell future events in the life of another. -- Fortune telling, the practice or art of professing to reveal future events in the life of another.
  3. 4.To make fortunate; to give either good or bad fortune to. [Obs.] Chaucer.
  4. 5.To provide with a fortune. Richardson.
  5. 6.To presage; to tell the fortune of. [Obs.] Dryden.
  6. 7.To fall out; to happen. It fortuned the same night that a Christian, serving a Turk in the camp, secretely gave the watchmen warning. Knolles.

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