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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Fortune \For"tune\ (f[^o]r"t[-u]n; 135), noun [F. fortune, L. fortuna; akin to fors, fortis, chance, prob. fr. ferre to bear, bring. See {Bear} to support, and cf. {Fortuitous}.]
1. The arrival of something in a sudden or unexpected manner; chance; accident; luck; hap; also, the personified or deified power regarded as determining human success, apportioning happiness and unhappiness, and distributing arbitrarily or fortuitously the lots of life.
'T is more by fortune, lady, than by merit. --Shak.
O Fortune, Fortune, all men call thee fickle. --Shak.
2. That which befalls or is to befall one; lot in life, or event in any particular undertaking; fate; destiny; as, to tell one's fortune.
You, who men's fortunes in their faces read. --Cowley.
3. That which comes as the result of an undertaking or of a course of action; good or ill success; especially, favorable issue; happy event; success; prosperity as reached partly by chance and partly by effort.
Our equal crimes shall equal fortune give. --Dryden.
There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. --Shak.
His father dying, he was driven to seek his fortune. --Swift.
4. Wealth; large possessions; large estate; riches; as, a gentleman of fortune.
Syn: Chance; accident; luck; fate.
{Fortune book}, a book supposed to reveal future events to those who consult it. --Crashaw.
{Fortune hunter}, one who seeks to acquire wealth by marriage.
{Fortune teller}, one who professes to tell future events in the life of another.
{Fortune telling}, the practice or art of professing to reveal future events in the life of another.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Fortune \For"tune\, verb (used with an object) [OF. fortuner, L. fortunare. See {Fortune}, noun]
1. To make fortunate; to give either good or bad fortune to. [Obs.] --Chaucer.
2. To provide with a fortune. --Richardson.
3. To presage; to tell the fortune of. [Obs.] --Dryden.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Fortune \For"tune\, verb (used without an object) To fall out; to happen.
It fortuned the same night that a Christian, serving a Turk in the camp, secretely gave the watchmen warning. --Knolles.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
fortune
noun
1: an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another; "bad luck caused his downfall"; "we ran into each other by pure chance" [syn: {luck}, {chance}, {hazard}]
2: a large amount of wealth or prosperity
3: an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that leads to a favorable outcome; "it was my good luck to be there"; "they say luck is a lady"; "it was as if fortune guided his hand" [syn: {luck}]
4: your overall circumstances or condition in life (including everything that happens to you); "whatever my fortune may be"; "deserved a better fate"; "has a happy lot"; "the luck of the Irish"; "a victim of circumstances"; "success that was her portion" [syn: {destiny}, {fate}, {luck}, {lot}, {circumstances}, {portion}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
179 Moby Thesaurus words for "fortune": Clio, Friday, Friday the thirteenth, Muse of history, accidentality, actuarial calculation, adventitiousness, adventures, affluence, annals, appointed lot, assets, astral influences, astrology, autobiography, beggared, biographical sketch, biography, blessing, bomb, boodle, book of fate, bottomless purse, break, bulging purse, bundle, calculated risk, case history, casualness, chance, chronicle, chronicles, chronology, circumstances, confessions, constellation, cup, curriculum vitae, destination, destiny, destitute, diary, dies funestis, doom, easy circumstances, embarras de richesses, end, estate, expectations, experiences, fatality, fate, felicity, flier, flukiness, foredoom, fortuitousness, fortuity, fortunateness, fortuneless, fortunes, future, gamble, gold, good fortune, good luck, hagiography, hagiology, handsome fortune, hap, happenstance, happy chance, happy fortune, hazard, heedless hap, high income, high tax bracket, historiography, history, holdings, how they fall, ides of March, impecunious, impoverished, independence, indeterminacy, indeterminateness, indigent, inevitability, journal, karma, kismet, law of averages, legend, life, life and letters, life story, lot, luck, luckiness, lucre, luxuriousness, mammon, martyrology, material wealth, means, memoir, memoirs, memorabilia, memorial, memorials, mint, moira, money, money to burn, moneybags, necrology, needy, obituary, opportunity, opulence, opulency, packet, pelf, penurious, photobiography, pile, planets, play, plunge, portion, position, possessions, pot, poverty-stricken, pretty penny, principle of indeterminacy, probability, problematicness, profile, property, prosperity, prosperousness, random sample, record, resources, resume, riches, richness, risk, roll, run of luck, serendipity, six-figure income, smiles of fortune, speculation, stars, statistical probability, story, substance, the breaks, theory of history, theory of probability, tidy sum, treasure, uncertainty, uncertainty principle, unlucky day, unprosperous, upper bracket, venture, wad, wealth, wealthiness, weird, whatever comes, wheel of fortune, will of Heaven, worth
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