funest

English

WOTD – 5 June 2011

Etymology

From French funeste, from Latin fūnestus, from fūnus (“funeral; death”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fjuːˈnɛst/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

Adjective

funest (comparative more funest, superlative most funest)

1. (now rare) Causing death or disaster; fatal, catastrophic; deplorable, lamentable.
   • 1663 Sept 17th, John Evelyn in a letter to Dr. Pierce, published 1863 in Diary and correspondence of John Evelyn, F.R.S., volume 3, page 142:

     I do assure you, there is nothing I have a greater scorn and indignation against, than these wretched scoffers; and I look upon our neglect of severely punishing them as an high defect in our politics, and a forerunner of something very funest.

   • 1716 Nov 7th, quoted from 1742, probably Alexander Pope, God's Revenge Against Punning, from Miscellanies, 3rd volume, page 226:

     Scarce had this unhappy Nation recover'd these funest disasters, when the abomination of Play-houses rose up in this land: From hence hath an inundation of Obscenity flow'd from the Court and overspread the Kingdom.

   • c. 1810-1820, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notes on Jeremy Taylor

     …excepting only some Popes have be'en remarked by their own histories for funest and direful deaths.

   • 1922 (first published 1923-09-07), Wallace Stevens, Of the Manner of Addressing Clouds, from collection Harmonium:

     Funest philosophers and ponderers,
     Their evocations are the speech of clouds.

   • 1969Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, (Please provide the book title or journal name), Penguin, published 2011, page 264:

     Flora, initially an ivory-pale, dark-haired funest beauty, whom the author transformed just in time into a third bromidic dummy with a dun bun.

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin fūnestus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [fuˈnest]
• Rhymes: -est

Adjective

funest (feminine funesta, masculine plural funests or funestos, feminine plural funestes)

1. funest

   Synonym: fatídic

Further reading

• “funest” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.
• “funest” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “funest”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2024
• “funest” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from French funeste.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fyˈnɛst/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: fu‧nest
• Rhymes: -ɛst

Adjective

funest (comparative funester, superlative meest funest or funestst)

1. funest, disastrous, catastrophic, fatal

Declension

Declension of funest
uninflected	funest
inflected	funeste
comparative	funester
		positive	comparative	superlative
predicative/adverbial		funest	funester	het funestst het funestste
indefinite	m./f. sing.	funeste	funestere	funestste
	n. sing.	funest	funester	funestste
	plural	funeste	funestere	funestste
definite		funeste	funestere	funestste
partitive		funests	funesters	—

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French funeste, from Latin funestus.

Adjective

funest m or n (feminine singular funestă, masculine plural funești, feminine and neuter plural funeste)

1. fatal, deadly

Declension

Declension of funest

		singular			plural
		masculine	neuter	feminine	masculine	neuter	feminine
nominative/ accusative	indefinite	funest		funestă	funești	funeste
	definite	funestul		funesta	funeștii	funestele
genitive/ dative	indefinite	funest		funeste	funești	funeste
	definite	funestului		funestei	funeștilor	funestelor