Fatality Meaning
/feɪˈtælɪti/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounThe state proceeding from destiny; invincible necessity, superior to, and independent of, free and rational control.
nounTendency to death, destruction or danger, as if by decree of fate.
Sentence Examples
Life has a 100% fatality rate.
Oslo and Helsinki did not record a single pedestrian fatality in 2019.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The highway patrol reported one ____ in the multi-car collision last night.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Thankfully, there were no ____s in the bus accident, and all the passengers survived the crash.
Word Origin & History
From French fatalité. equivalent to fatal + -ity. The video game move sense was popularized by the Mortal Kombat series.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"What can I say, or think of this most terrible of fatalities?"
— 1851, Wilkie Collins, The Twin Sisters:
"the whole thing felt like being in a near traffic fatality avoided by inches and later not being able to think of the whole thing lest you begin shaking..."
— 2011, David Foster Wallace, The Pale King, page 13:
"My first enchantment with computers came when I was about six years old, in Montreal in the early nineties, playing Mortal Kombat with my oldest brother. He told me about some “fatalities”—gruesome, witty ways of killing your opponent."
— 2023 November 13, James Somers, “A Coder Considers the Waning Days of the Craft”, in The New Yorker, →ISSN:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The highway patrol reported one ____ in the multi-car collision last night.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Thankfully, there were no ____s in the bus accident, and all the passengers survived the crash.