foredoom
verbEtymology From fore- + doom. Compare foredeem.
1
To predestine to a doom.
- Thou art foredoomed to view the Stygian state.1697, Virgil, “The Sixth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
- [W]hen to the inherent difficulties of so delicate and nice a social operation were added the spite and hate of conflict, the hell of war; when suspicion and cruelty were rife, and gaunt Hunger wept beside Bereavement,—in such a case, the work of any instrument of social regeneration was in large part foredoomed to failure.1903 April 18, W[illiam] E[dward] Burghardt Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., →OCLC:
3 more examples
- [O]ne feels that no community can really be as purged of peccant humours as the typical American has for the most part found itself foredoomed to look.1906 August, Henry James, “Baltimore”, in The American Scene, London: Chapman and Hall, published 30 January 1907, →OCLC, section II, page 312:
- To search for Tara of Helium in the vast, dim labyrinth of the pits of O-Tar seemed to the Gatholian a hopeless quest, foredoomed to failure.1922, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Chessmen of Mars, The Gutenberg Project, published 2010:
- They appeared, upon the surface, to possess all the qualities which were likely to recommend them to the fashionable society of the day; but their mission was foredoomed to failure.1932, Duff Cooper, Talleyrand, The Folio Society, published 2010, page 35:
- Related terms
- foredeem