I. ˈdüm noun
( -s )
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English dōm; akin to Old High German tuom condition, state, dignity, Old Norse dōmr judgment, court, sentence, Gothic doms sentence, fame; all from a prehistoric Germanic verb represented by Old English dōn to do — more at do
1.
a. : a law established by custom and judicial interpretation
b. : ordinance , decree
2. obsolete
a. : rectitude and just dealing
b. : judgment , discrimination
with … unerring doom he sees what is — John Dryden
3.
a. : a judgment or decision pronounced
whose doom discording neighbors sought — Sir Walter Scott
there are no such things as rules or principles: there are only isolated dooms — B.N.Cardozo
especially : a condemnation or penal decree
the inspired teaching of the doom of men to excruciation in endlessness — George Meredith
the guilty person who excessively fears death, anticipating it as a punishment and unconsciously acknowledging the justice of such a doom can now be reassured — Weston La Barre
b. : God's final judgment of mankind : last judgment
we thought the day of doom had come
c. obsolete : the end of one's life
4. archaic : the process of judging : legal trial
awaiting the opening of the doom
5. : something that is inevitably destined to befall:
a. : a state or end to which one is inexorably bound to come ; especially : a final unhappy or calamitous fate, destiny, or lot
they were glad he was going West at once, to fulfill his doom where they would not be onlookers — Willa Cather
luminous organs for attracting other creatures to their doom — J.L.B.Smith
b. : inevitable ending in frustration, desolation, or tragedy : predestined calamity or extinction
feverish enterprise, as if everyone was aware of approaching doom and was in a hurry to get somewhere before the thunderbolt fell — Harrison Smith
the sense of doom that infects many contemporary poets — C.I.Glicksberg
c. : inescapable penalty : unavoidably attendant or consequent ill fortune
his proud spirit sank under the doom of prison life — Thomas Barbour
Synonyms: see fate
II. verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
Etymology: Middle English domen, from doom, n.
transitive verb
1. archaic : to weigh or assess and pass judgment on
2. : to render judgment against : pronounce sentence on : condemn
absolves the just and dooms the guilty souls — John Dryden
sometimes a doomed book published in England reaches the Irish market in large quantities ahead of the censorship ban — Paul Blanshard
3. archaic : to ordain as penalty or sentence
have I tongue to doom my brother's death — Shakespeare
4.
a. : to force irresistibly or inexorably, consign irrevocably, relegate irretrievably, or constrain inescapably : destine or predestine ineluctably — used with to
some people will say that the world dooms itself to war because man is still aggressive at heart — J.B.Priestley
pity for one inexorably doomed to die for his people at the hands of a brutal mob — Alan Paton & Liston Pope
I was of those doomed to imperfect achievement — W.B.Yeats
its vitality was doomed to wane before the rivalry of the vernacular tongue — H.O.Taylor
b. : to render certain of failure, defeat, or nullification : set on a fixed course to elimination, destruction, or other disastrous conclusion : inflict impending ruin, disaster, or death upon
if the blowoff comes it may forever doom the efforts of Europe to undo peacefully the colonial harm she has done — Emory Ross
life is a risk and all individual plans precarious, all human achievements transient, and all individual lives doomed — Irwin Edman
once the horrors that lay in the background of Calvinism were disclosed to common view, the system was doomed — V.L.Parrington
experiments which were from the outset plainly doomed — Osbert Sitwell
5. archaic : to assess a tax upon (one not making return of his taxable property) by estimate or at discretion
intransitive verb
archaic : to pronounce judgment
who's to doom when the judge himself is dragged to the bar — Herman Melville