What does preordaining mean?
Preordaining means ordaining, deciding, or determining something before it happens. The word is often used when an outcome appears to have been fixed in advance by fate, providence, or a higher power, as in the idea that a character’s destiny has been preordained. It can also describe intentional planning: a director may be understood to be preordaining the structure of a performance through early decisions about movement, lighting, and timing. The expression carries a sense of inevitability and may suggest that later events merely fulfil an established plan. In ordinary conversation, forecast or arrange is often more direct and less dramatic, but preordaining is especially effective in literary, philosophical, or religious contexts. Its rarity gives it a weighty, almost ceremonial tone, making it useful for describing both worldly arrangements and supernatural control of events.
verb (present participle)To ordain or establish in advance, especially as if by fate or divine decree. The word is also used figuratively for deciding or determining something before events unfold.
- To ordain, establish, or decree something in advance.
- To decide or determine the course of something beforehand.
"The author seems to preordain the hero's fate from the opening chapter."
"By preordaining every detail of the ceremony, the organizers left little room for improvisation."
"The playwright preordains the outcome through repeated references to fate and destiny."
Preordaining gives a sense that the future has already been written, whether by destiny, an author, or an institution.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does preordaining come from?
The word combines the prefix pre-, meaning “before,” with ordain, “to establish, decree, or arrange.” Ordain comes through Old French from Latin ordinare, meaning “to put in order” or “arrange,” and ultimately from ordo, meaning “order” or “line.” The prefixed form has long been used in formal and religious writing to express the idea that an outcome is established beforehand. Related words such as order, ordinance, and ordinary share the same Latin root.
Related word forms
How preordaining is actually used
Relatively uncommon and literary or formal. It can suggest divine decree or inevitability, but it is also used figuratively for deliberate prior planning.
Easily confused with preordaining
Preordain is the base verb; preordaining is its present-participle and gerund form.