ominous, portentous, fateful mean having a menacing or threatening aspect. ominous implies having a menacing, alarming character foreshadowing evil or disaster.

/ ˈfeɪt.f ə l / Add to word list having an important and usually negative effect on the future: fateful day the fateful day of President Kennedy's assassination

Definition of fateful adjective in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.

1. having momentous significance or consequences; decisively important; portentous: a fateful meeting. 2. fatal, deadly, or disastrous. 3. controlled or determined by destiny; inex

Jan 14, 2026 · Adjective fateful (comparative more fateful, superlative most fateful) Momentous, significant, setting or sealing one’s fate. Synonyms: consequential, necessary;

FATEFUL definition: having momentous significance or consequences; decisively important; portentous. See examples of fateful used in a sentence.

fateful, adj. meanings, etymology, pronunciation and more in the Oxford English Dictionary

If an action or a time when something happened is described as fateful, it is considered to have an important, and often very bad, effect on future events. It was a fateful decisio

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025 fate•ful (fāt′ fəl), adj. having momentous significance or consequences; decisively important; po

Fateful definition: Vitally affecting subsequent events; being of great consequence; momentous.