FATAL definition: 1. A fatal illness, accident, etc. causes death: 2. very serious and having an important bad…. Learn more.
Fatal describes conditions, circumstances, or events that have already caused death or are virtually certain to do so in the future: a fatal accident; a fatal illness. Deadly means capable of killing or of being used to kill: a deadly poison; a deadly weapon.
Fatal, deadly, lethal, mortal apply to something that has caused or is capable of causing death. Fatal may refer to either the future or the past; in either case, it emphasizes inevitability and the inescapable--the disastrous, whether death or dire misfortune: The accident was fatal.
A fatal accident or illness causes someone's death. ...the fatal stabbing of a police sergeant. A hospital spokesman said she had suffered a fatal heart attack.