preordained

Settled before happening

Preordained means determined or decreed in advance, especially by divine will or fate.

What is preordained was settled before events unfolded: Some believe our fates are preordained.

The word suggests inevitability—that outcomes were fixed from the start and couldn't have been otherwise: The election result felt preordained after the scandal broke.

fate

destined

Fixed by fate

kismet · providence · predestination · doom · lot · fortune · karma · decree · foreordination · inevitability

prophetic

prophecy

Foretelling of future events

  • oracleAuthoritative wisdom source
  • foretoldPredicted future events
  • seerOne who envisions futures

omen · augury · divination · harbinger · revelation · prognostication · presage · portent · foreseen · predicted

inevitable

inescapable

Impossible to avoid

foregone · irrevocable · unalterable · fixed · ineluctable · unpreventable · irreversible · decided · sealed · set in stone

philosophical

determinism

Doctrine of causal necessity

necessity · predetermination · teleology · election · foreknowledge · theodicy · libertarianism · hard determinism · causal chain · mechanistic

divine

decreed

Formally ordered by authority

omniscient · godly · blessed · holy · divine will · celestial · heavenly · almighty · sovereign · scriptural

Categories
Opposites
determinism vs. chance

preordainedrandom

Occurring without pattern

accidental · chance · coincidental · fortuitous · haphazard

divine/external decree vs. free choice

preordainedself-determined

Decided by oneself

voluntary · elective · willed · autonomous · self-directed

fixed vs. open-ended

preordainedundetermined

Not yet established

uncertain · open-ended · contingent · unfixed · unpredetermined

Family

preordain, preordains, preordaining

Familiarity
Top 100,000
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Used worldwide · Timeless · Abstract · Everyday, not technical · Rated G