noun / verb
doom
DOOM/duːm/
A terrible fate, or to condemn someone or something to it.
The sandcastle faces its doom as waves erode its base.
Etymology
Doom originally meant judgment, not necessarily disaster. Association with the final Christian Judgment turned an irrevocable decision about someone’s fate into the adverse sense of unavoidable ruin or death.
In context
even he could not escape the hand of death, but fate and Juno’s fierce anger laid him low, as I too shall lie when I am dead if a like doom awaits me.
More examples
- Losing its biggest customer spells doom for the factory.
- A sense of doom hangs over the village as the volcano rumbles.
- Ignoring safety warnings can doom an expedition before it begins.
- Without enough funding, the project was doomed from the start.
Forms
doom · dooms · doomed · dooming
doomed adjective — certain to fail or be destroyed