doom
noun · verb
Simple meaning
An undesirable fate.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
doomIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdum
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
An undesirable fate; an impending severe occurrence or danger that seems inevitable.
Dread; a feeling of danger, impending danger, darkness, or despair.
Destiny, especially terrible.
verb
transitive
To pronounce judgment or sentence on; to condemn.
To destine; to fix irrevocably the ill fate of.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An undesirable fate; an impending severe occurrence or danger that seems inevitable.
Used this way, doom is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It carries more force than its gentler alternatives. It sounds natural in ordinary conversation and in expressive writing alike.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Strong
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use doom
- “Everyone was aware of the approaching doom but was helpless to avoid it.”noun
- “This decision will doom me to lose my position.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
People who are destined to die soon.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Day at the end of time following Armageddon when God will decree the fates of all individual humans according to the good and evil of their earthly lives.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: to pronounce judgment or sentence on
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.