fickle finger of fate
- idiom
- Informal
:
el caprichoso dedo del destino
- He lost his job due to the fickle finger of fate, leaving him to search for new opportunities.
Examples
-
The sudden rainstorm on their wedding day was just the fickle finger of fate at work.
-
When she got selected for the competition after weeks of uncertainty, she attributed it to the fickle finger of fate.
-
Dutifully, he resigns and aligns himself to what the comedians used to call "the fickle finger of fate."
Fiction book (1995)
Synonyms
235
3.1
Good or bad luck that happens by chance
18
7.0
Hard to know what will happen next
7
9.1
A risky situation where the result depends mostly on luck
1
8.9
A pattern of sudden, unpredictable changes in mood or plans
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase personifies 'fate' by attributing a 'fickle finger' to it, so a learner who knows 'fickle' (changeable), 'finger' (a part that can point or strike), and 'fate' (impersonal determining power) can plausibly infer an unpredictable or whimsical agency affecting events. However, the wording is metaphorical and somewhat poetic, so the precise idiomatic nuance and conventional phrasing may not be fully predictable to a B1 learner without prior exposure.
Etymology
Fickle finger of fate comes from the image of a finger that keeps changing where it points, suddenly choosing a person and changing their life. The word fickle means 'keeps changing' and fate means 'events that happen to us', so the picture explains why the phrase means 'unpredictable destiny'.