PREDESTINATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does predestination mean? 

• PREDESTINATION (noun)
  The noun PREDESTINATION has 2 senses:

1. previous determination as if by destiny or fate

2. (theology) being determined in advance; especially the doctrine (usually associated with Calvin) that God has foreordained every event throughout eternity (including the final salvation of mankind)

  Familiarity information: PREDESTINATION used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PREDESTINATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Previous determination as if by destiny or fate

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("predestination" is a kind of...):

destiny; fate (an event (or a course of events) that will inevitably happen in the future)

Derivation:

predestinationist (anyone who submits to the belief that they are powerless to change their destiny)

predestine (foreordain or determine beforehand)

predestine (decree or determine beforehand)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(theology) being determined in advance; especially the doctrine (usually associated with Calvin) that God has foreordained every event throughout eternity (including the final salvation of mankind)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

foreordination; predestination; predetermination; preordination

Hypernyms ("predestination" is a kind of...):

theological doctrine (the doctrine of a religious group)

Domain category:

divinity; theology (the rational and systematic study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truth)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "predestination"):

election (the predestination of some individuals as objects of divine mercy (especially as conceived by Calvinists))

Derivation:

predestinarian (of or relating to predestination; holding the doctrine of predestination)

predestinationist (anyone who submits to the belief that they are powerless to change their destiny)

predestine (foreordain by divine will or decree)

 Context examples 

Throughout there was a strange bitterness; an absence of consolatory gentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrines—election, predestination, reprobation—were frequent; and each reference to these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)