SG Heritage Dictionary

Fates [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1828

plural In mythology, the destinies or parcae; goddesses supposed to preside over the birth and life of men. They were three in number, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.

Fates Encyclopedia Britannica

FATES, in Latin mythology, a name given to certain beings who, by euphemism similar to that which gave to the Greek Erinyes (g.v.) the name of Eumenides, were also known as Parcae, or the Merciful. Originally the one Fatum, or spoken word of Jupiter, answered precisely to the single Aisa, the spoken word of Zeus, iu the mythology of the Greeks. The conversion of one Fate into three had reference to the distinction of time into the past, present, and future; and thus the Fates answer to the Teutonic Norns or Weird Sisters.

9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 9, p. 49
[94 words — estimated reading time: 1 minute]

Necessity Roget’s Thesaurus §601

N. involuntariness, instinct, blind impulse, inborn proclivity, innate proclivity, native tendency, natural tendency, natural impulse, predetermination, necessity, necessitation, obligation, compulsion, subjection, stern necessity, hard necessity, dire necessity, imperious necessity, inexorable necessity, iron necessity, adverse necessity, fate, what must be, destiny, destination, fatality, fate, kismet, doom, foredoom, election, predestination, preordination, foreordination, lot fortune, fatalism, inevitableness, spell, star, stars, planet, planets, astral influence, sky, fates, parcae, sisters three, book of fate, god's will, will of heaven, wheel of fortune, ides of march, hobson's choice, last shift, last resort, dernier ressort, pis aller, necessaries, necessarian, necessitarian, fatalist, automaton

V. lie under a necessity, befated, be doomed, be destined &c. in for, under the necessity of, have no choice, have no alternative, be one's fate, to be pushed to the wall to be driven into a corner, to be unable to help, destine, doom, foredoom, devote, predestine, preordain, cast a spell, necessitate, compel

Adj. necessary, needful, fated, destined, elect, spellbound, compulsory, uncontrollable, inevitable, unavoidable, irresistible, irrevocable, inexorable, avoidless, resistless, involuntary, instinctive, automatic, blind, mechanical, unconscious, unwitting, unthinking, unintentional, impulsive

Adv. necessarily, of necessity, of course, ex necessitate rei, needs must, perforce, nolens volens, will he nil he, willy nilly, bon gre mal gre, willing or unwilling, coute que coute, faute de mieux, by stress of, if need be

Phr. it cannot be helped, there is no help for, there is no helping it, it will be, it must be, it needs to be, it must be so, it will have its way, the die is cast, jacta est alea, che sara sara, "it is written", one's days are numbered, one's fate is sealed, fata obstant, diis aliter visum, actum me invito factus, non est meus actus, aujord'hui roi demain rien, quisque suos patimur manes, "the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. nor all your piety and wit can bring it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it."