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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
fatalism
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A passive fatalism at the capriciousness and heavy-handedness of authority prevailed amongst the thirty-year men.
▪ Briefly optimistic at the start, it did not take much for the fatalism to set in.
▪ Malthus was burdened by a fatalism induced by fears of population growth and resource shortages.
▪ The quiet flatness of her voice was mirrored by the fatalism he saw in her eyes.
▪ This has all to be seen in the context of the profound fatalism about life itself.
▪ This is one aspect of our fatalism and paralysis.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Fatalism

Fatalism \Fa"tal*ism\, n. [Cf. F. fatalisme.] The doctrine that all things are subject to fate, or that they take place by inevitable necessity.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
fatalism

1670s as a philosophical doctrine that all things are determined by fate, from fatal + -ism. Meaning "disposition to accept all conditions and events as inevitable" is from 1734.

Wiktionary
fatalism

n. The doctrine that all events are subject to fate or inevitable necessity, or determined in advance in such a way that human beings cannot change them.

WordNet
fatalism

n. a philosophical doctrine holding that all events are predetermined in advance for all time and human beings are powerless to change them

Wikipedia
Fatalism

Fatalism is a philosophical doctrine stressing the subjugation of all events or actions to fate.

Fatalism generally refers to any of the following ideas:

  1. The view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do. Included in this is that man has no power to influence the future, or indeed, his own actions. This belief is very similar to predeterminism.
  2. An attitude of resignation in the face of some future event or events which are thought to be inevitable. Friedrich Nietzsche named this idea with "Turkish fatalism" in his book The Wanderer and His Shadow.
  3. That acceptance is appropriate, rather than resistance against inevitability. This belief is very similar to defeatism.

Usage examples of "fatalism".

Everywhere I encountered fatalism, apathy, lost communications, broken-up regiments, and confusion over orders.

I tried to stay on my back, face up, rocketing along with the fatalism of an Olympic bobsledder whistling down a luge chute, but the torrent repeatedly, insistently rolled me, pushing my face under the flow.

I tried to stay on my back, face up, rocketing along with the fatalism of an Olympic bobsledder whistling down a luge chute, but the torrent repeatedly, insistently rolled me, pushing my face under the flow.

He needed all her assistance and all her loyalty in these new conjunctures his fatalism had already accepted.

Maisie found in this exchange of asperities a fresh incitement to the unformulated fatalism in which her sense of her own career had long since taken refuge.

There may not be enough barbells in this ending to satisfy Iowa Bob, and not enough fatalism for Frank.

When Alain wipes away the mud crusting his face, he is seen to be young, and the Wayland soldiers mumble and mutter and scratch their heads and finally, with a certain practical fatalism, check him for injuries.

So with a tranquil conscience and that fatalism which sailors must acquire if they are not to perish of frustration, he rejoiced in this opportunity for making the Boadicea into something like his notion of a crack frigate, a fighting-machine manned entirely by able seamen, men-of war's men, every one of them an expert gun-layer and a devil with the boarding-axe and cutlass.

McKittrick told the senior air traffic controller, his voice suggesting an unhealthy combination of fatigue and fatalism.

A strange fatalism overtook him as he felt himselfrematerialize and knew he was on the planet wherethe broadcast station was nestled.

And as a matter of fact, the fatalism of the weak-willed embellishes itself surprisingly when it can pose as "la religion de la souffrance humaine".

Jack had waited for her to backslide with that queer fatalism which is the flip side of childish credulity and innocence.

They transited in massed formations, ignoring their interpenetration losses with cybernetic fatalism, and rushed on, past the capital ships of the first waves, past even the fighters and gunboats those capital ships had launched.