Fate vs. Destiny

I've heard a lot of people talk about Fate and Destiny and it seems most use the words interchangeably. I have done a search on each in dictionaries and search engines to determine if they are indeed the same or not. I still feel unconfident in differentiating between the two and was wondering if any of our intelligent members here on ATS could perhaps explain the difference between the two according to their own perceptions.

What - if any - is the difference between Fate and Destiny?

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Some links for those interested in this topic:
Difference Between
Using English
Wikipedia

Destiny is where fate is how

Im going with this;
.Fate is seen as divinely planned, whereas destiny has the power to be influenced by man’s actions

Read more: Difference Between Fate and Destiny | Difference Between | Fate vs Destiny www.differencebetween.net...
Interesting to think about either way
Look forward to seeing what others think

reply to post by Dark Ghost


Nice question, IMHO Fate is what happens to you outside your control or despite of your choices.
Destiny is potential that you can choose to fulfil or ignore.
Just my own personal opinion.

reply to post by HumansEh

Fate is what happens to you outside your control or despite of your choices.
Destiny is potential that you can choose to fulfil or ignore.

I would agree with that. Two of the most common phrases concerning fate and destiny are: "you can't escape fate" and "fulfill your destiny".

Destiny is what waits for you in the future.

Fate is what you have experienced already.

For me, I've always seen "Fate" as something inescapable, something that no matter your best efforts will come to pass.

Destiny however I have always felt was the potential for something to be fulfilled but not guaranteed.

The strange thing is that I've always seen the two leading you somewhere, Fate will get you there no matter what you do, for better or worse. Destiny on the other hand will allow you to fail, however you may become a better or worse person because of the journey.

If I ever had the choice, I'd go for Destiny over Fate any day of the week.

If your a good person one day you will arrive at your Destiny.

If your an evil person one day you will meet your Fate.

It's my Fate to fulfill my Destiny.

reply to post by Dark Ghost

I would say fate is one and the same with destiny, there is no difference, what you stated here is the same thing VS the same thing.

Since I believe in free will, I don't believe in destiny. My choices may lead to a certain fate however. But they are still my choices and not preordained or "written in the stars". Free will means I don't need to be locked into a certain situation/environment/job/lousy marriage/etc but can change things hopefully for the better.

I would also say that there is no difference between the two.

Also when I translate it to my own language, dutch, we only have one word for the two...
same for other languages.

I was looking this up a few days ago myself:

Destiny/Fate

Although the words are used interchangeably in many cases, fate and destiny can be distinguished. It depends on how narrow or broad the definitions are. Broadly speaking, fate is destiny. Narrowly and to be more accurate, traditional usage defines fate as a power or agency that predetermines and orders the course of events. Fate defines events as ordered or "inevitable". Fate is used with regard to the finality of events as they have worked themselves out; and that same sense of finality, projected into the future to become the inevitability of events as they will work themselves out, is Destiny. In other words, fate relates to events of the past and is proven to be true and unalterable, whereas destiny relates to the probable to almost certain future. Note that it is only almost certain and not absolutely certain, allowing for change to occur. This can be seen in our common language usage, e.g. "His calling, his destiny is to be a doctor." Will he definitely be a doctor? Well, it remains to be seen.

Originally posted by GypsK
I would also say that there is no difference between the two.

Also when I translate it to my own language, dutch, we only have one word for the two...
same for other languages.

Well, then your language doesn't address the very real difference between the terms. The OP is asking if there is a difference between the English terms Fate and Destiny, and when addressing the premise itself, what you have to do is....well.....address the premise. That premise is whether there is a difference between what these two terms represent, and there are several posts that do a pretty good job of addressing it.

If I was referring to Dutch terms - specifically, whether there is a separate term for Fate, as opposed to what the Dutch term is for Destiny - then this would be something that your post would be properly addressing. The truth is that the reason that the English terms Fate and Destiny exist, is because they are two different concepts.

Some people people see chocolate, tan, cocoa, mocha and burnt sienna, while others only see brown. That doesn't mean that shades of brown don't exist, just because some people don't care enough to notice the difference.

reply to post by NorEaster


lol, no need to snap like that
You need more 'adressing', here it is:

Enlish: fate - destiny
dutch: het lot - het lot
french: destin - destin
german: schicksal - schicksal
spanish: destino - destino
hebrew: גורלו - וגורל
russian: судьба - судьба
ukrain: доля - доля
Korean: 운명 - 운명

and I found 3 other languages in which they have seperate words for the two:

italian: fato - destino
portugese: fado - destino
arabic: القضاء - والقدر

in all the languages where they use the same word to express either fate or desity, they do not have another word to describe this concept for past or future events, same word is used no matter in what context you use it in.

That said, I do realize the difference of the concepts and haven probably been using both words in the wrong context, especially in english, which is one of the few languages that has a seperate word for it :
as in
"it is/will be/should be his destiny" vs "it was his destiny" or
"it was his fate"vs "it is/will be/should be his fate"

according to the meaning of the words, the two last phrases above are almost imposible to use in the right context.

so even when the context of both is perfectly understandable by everyone who reads those, it is not literaly correct to use it this way. It is however not a mistake in other languages.

it depends on the tense.

in paste tense, they're pretty much interchangeable.

however in current-future chronology, destiny is a condition of fate, the latter which is somewhat more absolute:

she tried to escape her destiny, but her fate had already been sealed.

his destiny is in the hands of fate.