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