fortune: Meaning and Definition of

for•tune

Pronunciation: (fôr'chun), [key]
— n., v., -tuned, -tun•ing.
—n.
  1. position in life as determined by wealth: to make one's fortune.
  2. wealth or riches: to lose a small fortune in bad investments.
  3. great wealth; ample stock of money, property, and the like: to be worth a fortune.
  4. chance; luck: They each had the bad fortune to marry the wrong person.
  5. things that happen or are to happen to a person in his or her life.
  6. fate; lot; destiny: whatever my fortune may be.
  7. (cap.) chance personified, commonly regarded as a mythical being distributing arbitrarily or capriciously the lots of life: Perhaps Fortune will smile on our venture.
  8. good luck; success; prosperity: a family blessed by fortune.
  9. a wealthy woman; an heiress.
  10. to profess to inform someone of future events in his or her own life; foretell.
—v.t.
  1. to endow (someone or something) with a fortune.
—v.i.
  1. to chance or happen; come by chance.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
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