not to be
Destined for nonexistence
Not to be signals that something fails to happen or shouldn't exist.
The phrase often appears with nouns describing unrealized possibilities: It was not to be—fate intervened.
In Shakespeare's famous soliloquy, to be or not to be poses existence against nonexistence.
The construction can also express prohibition or destiny's denial: They were not to be disturbed; We hoped for reconciliation, but it was not to be.
- that is the questionThe essential point
- nonexistentNot present anywhere
- vanishCease to be visible
- ceaseTo discontinue activity
- disappearPass from visibility
no more · void · null and void · absence · oblivion · extinct · dead and gone · gone · perish · fade · dissolve · wiped out · annihilate · negate · impossible · forbidden · taboo · erase
not to bemeant to be
Predetermined by fate
ordained · predestined · inevitable · bound to happen · written in the stars
not, knot, naught, nought, nothing, none, neither, entity, absent