fatal
Noun pluralfatals
Pluralfatals
- 1Causing death or destruction.
The collision proved fatal to three passengers.
A single mistake at that altitude can be fatal for climbers.
Similardeadly, lethal, destructive, mortal, catastrophic
Oppositeharmless, nonfatal, survivable
Note
The everyday sense stretches well beyond the body. It covers a fatal wound or a fatal disease, but also a fatal mistake. In Cindy Rizzo's 1980 review, a technique is "fatal in novels," deadly to a book's success rather than to anyone's life. The word pairs naturally with to, for and in, and with proved: something proves fatal to a plan or fatal for climbers.
- 2A death, or an event that results in someone's death.
Investigators recorded the wreck as a fatal.
The intersection has seen several fatals this year.
Note
Accident reporting has its own shorthand. A 1969 congressional hearing counts "four fatals and 44 nonfatals in gassy mines," and Flying Magazine in 1999 gives accident rates "for fatals." The noun is countable, with the plural fatals. It is usually paired with nonfatals or total accidents. It belongs to statistics, safety reports and investigators' language rather than to ordinary conversation about a death.
- 3In computing, bringing the execution of a program to an abrupt halt.
The program hit a fatal exception and shut down.
A fatal bug forced the application to quit unexpectedly.
Similarunrecoverable, critical
Oppositerecoverable, nonfatal
Note
Programmers use this word for failures with no way back: a fatal error, a fatal exception. The contrast is with warnings and recoverable errors, which let execution continue. A fatal one ends the run outright. In software the word carries no drama, only finality. The term is common enough that the adjective has been clipped into a noun of its own.
- 4An error or failure that forces a program to stop running.
The compiler reported a fatal and stopped the build.
Repeated fatals in the logs pointed to a memory leak.
Similarcrash
Note
Developers' clipping drops the noun: fatal error becomes simply a fatal. It counts like any other noun, so logs can show repeated fatals and a compiler can report one. This parallels the accident-statistics noun, where one field's working jargon also turns the adjective into a thing. It is a casual technical word, at home in logs and bug reports.
Less common meanings
- 5Giving warning of approaching death or great disaster.
A fatal hush settled on the court as the omen was read aloud.
She heard the owl's cry as a fatal sign of coming sorrow.
Similarominous, sinister, dire, disastrous, foreboding
Note
The omen sense sits between the "fated" meaning and the deadly one: a fatal sign does not kill, it warns. Its nearest neighbors are inauspicious and portentous. Walter Besant could still call a family scandal "a most truly horrible, deplorable, fatal thing" in 1892. Today the word is heard as "ruinous," so a writer who wants foreboding is safer with portentous.
- 6Resulting from fate or fixed in advance by it.
The poet wrote of a fatal bond that destiny itself had decreed.
They regarded the prophecy as a fatal decree, beyond any man's power to change.
Similarinevitable, unavoidable, certain, inescapable, necessary
Note
This is the meaning closest to the word's roots. It came through Middle French from Latin fātālis, built on fate itself. Here fatal means fated, close to inevitable or necessary, with no death implied. Because the everyday "deadly" sense has crowded it out, modern readers will hear doom where none is meant. Keep it for deliberately archaic or literary writing.
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Origin
From Middle French "fatal", which comes from Latin "fatalis", meaning "fatal".