fate
/feɪt/noun, verb
fate is spelled F-A-T-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 23 times per million words in written English, the 3,875th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, fate means “The presumed cause, force, principle, or divine will that predetermines events” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of fate is fates.
How many letters and syllables are in fate?
| Letters | 4: F-A-T-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 23 times per million words; the 3,875th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is fate?
Fate appears 23 times per million words in written English, the 3,875th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce fate?
- /feɪt/
Fate has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-fate.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with fate
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with fate?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as fate.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: feat, feta.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of fate
- fates plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- fating participle, present
- fated participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does fate mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The presumed cause, force, principle, or divine will that predetermines events.
- 2
The effect, consequence, outcome, or inevitable events predetermined by this cause.
- 3
An event or a situation which is inevitable in the fullness of time.
- 4
Destiny; often with a connotation of death, ruin, misfortune, etc.
Accept your fate.
- 5
Alternative letter-case form of Fate (one of the goddesses said to control the destiny of human beings).
- 6
The products of a chemical reaction in their final form in the biosphere.
- 7
The mature endpoint of a region, group of cells or individual cell in an embryo, including all changes leading to that mature endpoint
verb
- 1
To foreordain or predetermine, to make inevitable.
The oracle's prediction fated Oedipus to kill his father; not all his striving could change what would occur.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Fate in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | destin, destinée, sort |
| German | Schicksal, Los, Geschick |
| Portuguese | destino, fado, sina |
| Spanish | azar, hado, fátum , sino |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does fate come from?
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.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).