Word.ws English Dictionary

doom

/duːm/

doom noun: destiny, especially terrible. Also the initialism of didn't organize.

Noun

doom (countable and uncountable, plural dooms)

  1. Destiny, especially terrible.
    • This, for the night; by day, the web and loom, / And homely houſhold-taſk, ſhall be her doom,a. 1701 (date written), John Dryden, “The First Book of Homer's Ilias”, in The Miscellaneous Works of John Dryden, […], volume IV, London: […] J[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson, […], published 1760...
    • "When should I expect him?" Roy said, resigned to his doom.2007, Billy Lee Brammer, “Fustian Days: Book One: Sonic Goddam Boom”, in Southwest Review, volume 92, number 4, page 495
  2. An undesirable fate; an impending severe occurrence or danger that seems inevitable.
    • unlike Vincent, he wasn't quite taken in by the outbreak of hopefulness on all sides. After all, nothing about the tanks or the process had been resolved; an air of doom still hung undisturbed over the project.2004, Arthur Miller, “The Turpentine Still”, in Southwest Review, volume 89, number 4, page 479
    • Such paintings are inherently moody, and Elliott likes that-even as he carefully avoids dictating a specific mood. "Yesterday I painted the last light of the day-the trees looked pink, and the mountain's shadow was coming over them. It created a feeling of nostalgia... or impending doom... or...2007 February, Bob Bahr, “Tapestries in Oil”, in American Artist, volume 71, number 773, page 45
    Antonyms:
    fortune
  3. Dread; a feeling of danger, impending danger, darkness, or despair.
    • She halted her pacing steps as the ugly significance of Nicholas Caulfield's pending arrival washed over her. Ruin. Destitution. Doom settled like a heavy stone in her chest.2006, Sophie Jordan, Once upon a wedding night
    • Feeling doom, as we learned in the beautiful folk language of blacks who knew the truth of it, began with a single unexpected oddity — a redbird out of season, hail out of cloudless skies, dogs cowering under the house2007, Terry Kay with William J. Scheick, The Year the Lights Came on, page 204
  4. (countable, obsolete) A law.
    • "What ye will not that other men should do unto you, that do ye not unto other men." "From this one doom," comments Alfred, "a man may bethink him how he should judge every one rightly: he needs no other doombook."1915, Beatrice Adelaide Lees, Alfred the Great: the truth teller, maker of England, 848-899, page 211
  5. (countable, obsolete) A judgment or decision.
    • And there he learned of things and haps to come, / To give foreknowledge true, and certain doom.1600, Edward Fairfax, transl., Jerusalem Delivered, translation of Gerusalemme Liberata by Torquato Tasso
    • But the day of doome shall be the end of this time, and the beginning of the immortality for to come, wherein corruption is past.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 2 Esdras 7:43
  6. (countable, obsolete) A sentence or penalty for illegal behaviour.
    • The first dooms of London provide especially the recovery of cattle belonging to the citizens.1874, John Richard Green, A Short History of the English People
    • Appeals were by our ancient law styled falsing of dooms. They were to be entered immediately after doom or sentence was pronounced,1828, John Erskine with Sir George Mackenzie and James Ivory, An institute of the law of Scotland, page 989
  7. Death.
    • They met an untimely doom when the mineshaft caved in.
    • This is the day of doom for Bassianus.1593, William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus
  8. (capitalized, sometimes) The Last Judgment; or, an artistic representation thereof.

Verb

doom (third-person singular simple present dooms, present participle dooming, simple past and past participle doomed)

  1. (transitive) To pronounce judgment or sentence on; to condemn.
    • a criminal doomed to death
    • Absolves the just, and dooms the guilty souls.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
  2. To destine; to fix irrevocably the ill fate of.
    • A man of genius […] doomed to struggle with difficulties.1856 February, [Thomas Babington] Macaulay, “Oliver Goldsmith”, in T[homas] F[lower] E[llis], editor, The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, new edition, London: Longman, Green...
  3. (obsolete) To judge; to estimate or determine as a judge.
    • And while we know not that the King of heaven hath not doomed this place our safe retreat1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker...
  4. (obsolete) To ordain as a penalty; hence, to mulct or fine.
    • Have I tongue to doom my brother's death?c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    Synonyms:
    penalize, sanction
  5. (New-England, archaic) To assess a tax upon, by estimate or at discretion.
  6. (Internet, intransitive) To be extremely pessimistic about something.
    • Every time I see people dooming over North America I just assume its because they've never seen the parts of it that look like this2023 September 14, @alanthefisher, X (post), archived from the original on 07 May 2026
    • You can tell why Democrats were dooming like two months ago2024 September 17, @USA_Polling, X (post), archived from the original on 07 May 2026

Proper noun (1) capitalized: DOOM

DOOM

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of Doom.

Phrase capitalized: DOOM

DOOM

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of doom (“didn't organize, only moved”).

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Doom

Doom

  1. A popular first-person shooter video game, often regarded as the progenitor of the genre.
    • Origin […] have used the canvas of a Doom-like first-person 3-D engine to paint a master work of their own in this comic-book action game.1996 May 1, Jeffrey Adam Young, “CyberMage: Darklight Awakening Review”, in GameSpot

Also used as

doom is also the initialism of didn't organize.

doom meaning in Gujarati, Nepali and Arabic

doom in Gujarati

કયામત

doom in Nepali

कयामत, डूम

doom in Arabic

destiny, especially terrible
نَحْس naḥs, شُؤْم šuʔm

Examples of doom in a sentence

  • It created a feeling of nostalgia... or impending doom... or still, quiet, peacefulness.2007 February, Bob Bahr, “Tapestries in Oil”, in American Artist, volume 71, number 773, page 45:
  • His arrival might spell doom for Rodney Harrison.2009 April 27, Nate Davis, “After Lions^ gamble, lots of big men tapped”, in USA Today, Sports, page 7C:
  • I'm taking medications every day; never thinking I would be spiraling into nothing but a nightmare that made me feel doom.2008, Beverly Fincham, Real Life Freedom, page 25:
  • Then the smiling narrator filled me with doom: I was expected to pull my own rip cord.2009 March, Deanna Roy, “Forget the rules and make the leap”, in Writer, volume 122, number 3, page 15:

All 40 example sentences with doom

Synonyms of doom

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of doom

Forms of doom

Noun
pluraldooms
Verb
third-person singular presentdooms
present participledooming
past participledoomed
pastdoomed
Proper noun
alternative formDOOM

Past tense of doom: doomed

Plural of doom: dooms

Origin of doom

From Middle English doom, dom, from Old English dōm (“judgement”), from Proto-West Germanic *dōm, from Proto-Germanic *dōmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰóh₁mos. Cognates Compare Dutch doem (“condemnation, doom; judgement”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish dom (“judgement”), Faroese and Icelandic dómur (“judgement”), Gothic 𐌳𐍉𐌼𐍃 (dōms, “insight, judgement”); also Ancient Greek θωμός (thōmós, “heap”), Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, and Ukrainian ду́ма (dúma, “thought”), Polish duma (“pride”). Doublet of duma. See also deem.

From doom.

Words formed from doom

Phrases with doom

Words that rhyme with doom

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about doom

What does doom mean?
Doom means destiny, especially terrible.
What is doom in Gujarati?
Doom in Gujarati is કયામત. See Doom meaning in Gujarati.
How do you use doom in a sentence?
It created a feeling of nostalgia... or impending doom... or still, quiet, peacefulness.
What part of speech is doom?
Doom can be a noun, a verb, a proper noun or a phrase.
How do you pronounce doom?
Doom is pronounced /duːm/.
What is the plural of doom?
The plural of doom is dooms.

Words near doom in the dictionary

  1. Doolittle
  2. dooly
  3. Dooly County
  4. dooly-bearer
  5. dooly-bearers
  6. doom
  7. doom and gloom
  8. Doom clone
  9. Doom clones
  10. doom folk
  11. doom jobbing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: doom (page history and authors); DOOM (page history and authors); Doom (page history and authors); doom (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); doom (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-doom.ogg.

Cite this entry: “doom.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/doom. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.