Fortune

• POS: Noun, Verb (usu participle)
• HYPHEN: for=tune

CIDE DICTIONARY

Fortune, n. [F. fortune, L. fortuna; akin to fors, fortis, chance, prob. fr. ferre to bear, bring. See Bear to support, and cf. Fortuitous.].

•  The arrival of something in a sudden or unexpected manner; chance; accident; luck; hap; also, the personified or deified power regarded as determining human success, apportioning happiness and unhappiness, and distributing arbitrarily or fortuitously the lots of life.  [1913 Webster]

  "'T is more by fortune, lady, than by merit."  [1913 Webster]

  "O Fortune, Fortune, all men call thee fickle."  [1913 Webster]
•  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.  [1913 Webster]

  "You, who men's fortunes in their faces read."  [1913 Webster]
•  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.  [1913 Webster]

  "Our equal crimes shall equal fortune give."  [1913 Webster]

  "There is a tide in the affairs of men,
  Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."  [1913 Webster]

  "His father dying, he was driven to seek his fortune."  [1913 Webster]
•  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.

Syn. -- Chance; accident; luck; fate.

Fortune, v. t. [OF. fortuner, L. fortunare. See Fortune, n.].

•  To make fortunate; to give either good or bad fortune to.  Chaucer.  [1913 Webster]
•  To provide with a fortune.  Richardson.  [1913 Webster]
•  To presage; to tell the fortune of.  Dryden.  [1913 Webster]

Fortune, v. i. 

 To fall out; to happen.  [1913 Webster]
"It fortuned the same night that a Christian, serving a Turk in the camp, secretely gave the watchmen warning."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Fortune, n.
1 a chance or luck as a force in human affairs. b a person's destiny.
2 (Fortune) this force personified, often as a deity.
3 (in sing. or pl.) luck (esp. favourable) that befalls a person or enterprise.
4 good luck.
5 prosperity; a prosperous condition.
6 (also colloq. small fortune) great wealth; a huge sum of money.

Idiom

fortune-hunter colloq. a person seeking wealth by marriage. fortune-teller a person who claims to predict future events in a person's life. fortune-telling the practice of this. make a (or one's) fortune acquire wealth or prosperity. tell a person's fortune make predictions about a person's future.

Etymology

ME f. OF f. L fortuna luck, chance

THESAURUS

Fortune

Clio, Friday, Friday the thirteenth, Muse of history, accidentality, actuarial calculation, adventitiousness, adventures, affluence, annals, appointed lot, assets, astral influences, astrology, autobiography, beggared, biographical sketch, biography, blessing, bomb, boodle, book of fate, bottomless purse, break, bulging purse, bundle, calculated risk, case history, casualness, chance, chronicle, chronicles, chronology, circumstances, confessions, constellation, cup, curriculum vitae, destination, destiny, destitute, diary, dies funestis, doom, easy circumstances, embarras de richesses, end, estate, expectations, experiences, fatality, fate, felicity, flier, flukiness, foredoom, fortuitousness, fortuity, fortunateness, fortuneless, fortunes, future, gamble, gold, good fortune, good luck, hagiography, hagiology, handsome fortune, hap, happenstance, happy chance, happy fortune, hazard, heedless hap, high income, high tax bracket, historiography, history, holdings, how they fall, ides of March, impecunious, impoverished, independence, indeterminacy, indeterminateness, indigent, inevitability, journal, karma, kismet, law of averages, legend, life, life and letters, life story, lot, luck, luckiness, lucre, luxuriousness, mammon, martyrology, material wealth, means, memoir, memoirs, memorabilia, memorial, memorials, mint, moira, money, money to burn, moneybags, necrology, needy, obituary, opportunity, opulence, opulency, packet, pelf, penurious, photobiography, pile, planets, play, plunge, portion, position, possessions, pot, poverty-stricken, pretty penny, principle of indeterminacy, probability, problematicness, profile, property, prosperity, prosperousness, random sample, record, resources, resume, riches, richness, risk, roll, run of luck, serendipity, six-figure income, smiles of fortune, speculation, stars, statistical probability, story, substance, the breaks, theory of history, theory of probability, tidy sum, treasure, uncertainty, uncertainty principle, unlucky day, unprosperous, upper bracket, venture, wad, wealth, wealthiness, weird, whatever comes, wheel of fortune, will of Heaven, worth

ROGET THESAURUS

Fortune

Wealth

N wealth, riches, fortune, handsome fortune, opulence, affluence, good circumstances, easy circumstances, independence, competence, solvency, provision, livelihood, maintenance, alimony, dowry, means, resources, substance, property, command of money, income, capital, money, round sum, mint of money, mine of wealth, El Dorado, bonanza, Pacatolus, Golconda, Potosi, long purse, full purse, well lined purse, heavy purse, deep pockets, purse of Fortunatus, embarras de richesses, pelf, Mammon, lucre, filthy lucre, loaves and fishes, rich man, moneyed man, warm man, man of substance, capitalist, millionaire, tippybob, Nabob, Croesus, idas, Plutus, Dives, Timon of Athens, Timocracy, Plutocracy, Danae, wealthy, rich, affluent, opulent, moneyed, monied, worth much, well to do, well off, warm, comfortable, well, well provided for, made of money, rich as Croesus, filthy rich, rich as a Jew, rolling in riches, rolling in wealth, flush, flush of cash, flush of money, flush of tin, in funds, in cash, in full feather, solvent, pecunious, out of debt, in the black, all straight, one's ship coming in, amour fait beaucoup mais argent fait tout, love does much but money does everything, aurea rumpunt tecta quietem, magna servitus ist magna fortuna, mammon, the least erected spirit that fell from Heaven, opum furiata cupido, vera prosperita e non aver necessita, wie gewonnen so zerronnen.

Chance

N chance, lot, fate, luck, good luck, mascot, speculation, venture, stake, game of chance, mere shot, random shot, blind bargain, leap in the dark, pig in a poke, fluke, potluck, faro bank, flyer, limit, uncertainty, uncertainty principle, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, drawing lots, sortilegy, sortition, sortes, sortes Virgilianae, rouge et noir, hazard, ante, chuck-a-luck, crack-loo, craps, faro, roulette, pitch and toss, chuck, farthing, cup tossing, heads or tails cross and pile, poker-dice, wager, bet, betting, gambling, the turf, gaming house, gambling house, betting house, bucket shop, gambling joint, totalizator, totalizer, hell, betting ring, dice, dice box, gambler, gamester, man of the turf, adventurer, dicer, fortuitous, unintentional, unintended, accidental, not meant, undesigned, purposed, unpremeditated, unforeseen, uncontemplated, never thought of, random, indiscriminate, promiscuous, undirected, aimless, driftless, designless, purposeless, causeless, without purpose, possible, unforeseeable, unpredictable, chancy, risky, speculative, dicey, randomly, by chance, fortuitously, unpredictably, unforeseeably, casually, unintentionally, unwittingly, en passant, by the way, incidentally, as it may happen, at random, at a venture, at haphazard, acierta errando, dextro tempore, fearful concatenation of circumstances, fortuitous combination of circumstances, le jeu est le fils d'avarice et le pere du desespo, the happy combination of fortuitous circumstances, the fortuitous or casual concourse of atoms, God does not play dice with the universe, chance, indetermination, accident, fortune, hazard, hap, haphazard, chance medley, random, luck, raccroc, casualty, contingence, adventure, hit, fate, equal chance, lottery, tombola, toss up, turn of the table, turn of the cards, hazard of the die, chapter of accidents, fickle finger of fate, cast of the dice, throw of the dice, heads or tails, flip of a coin, wheel of Fortune, sortes, sortes Virgilianae, probability, possibility, odds, long odds, run of luck, accidentalness, main chance, odds on, favorable odds, contingency, dependence (uncertainty), situation (circumstance), statistics, theory of Probabilities, theory of Chances, bookmaking, assurance, speculation, gaming, casual, fortuitous, accidental, adventitious, causeless, incidental, contingent, uncaused, undetermined, indeterminate, random, statistical, possible, unintentional, by chance, accidentally, by accident, casually, perchance, for aught one knows, as good would have it, as bad would have it, as luck would have it, as ill-luck would have it, as chance would have it, as it may be, as it may chance, as it may turn up, as it may happen, as the case may be, grasps the skirts of happy chance, the accident of an accident, There but for the grace of God go I.