# Help locating or, if that fails, creating a word for "tempting fate"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 25, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634 "2012-01-25T20:34:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/1 "2012-01-25T20:34:07Z")
I was just thinking about tempting fate and jinxing. You know, you just happened to be thinking about how the printer hasn’t run out of paper in a while, and bam, it’s out of paper. This isn’t really jinxing, which has a slightly different connotation. Tempting fate is a common expression, but is there, or could we make, a word for it? English has a rich tradition of stealing words from other languages, that’s fine for my purposes. (Of course, if someone knows a word in English already, please say so.)
Obviously, such thoughts or their verbal _don’t_ cause the event, let’s not even entertain the idea, lest it cause it to be true. 😉
So I hit wikipedia for “knock on wood” which is sort of the counter to such fate-tempting, and saw it called “Apotropaic magic.” Which, frankly, sounds awesome. Wiki says: from Greek apotrepein, to ward off : apo-, away + trepein, to turn. But such an apotropaic skill like knocking on wood would only be there to counter the… what? What would be a word for tempting fate in the first place?
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2012, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/2 "2012-01-25T20:48:54Z")
“Hubris” is close to what you want.
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### Author:  [@bleach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bleach)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/3 "2012-01-25T22:16:50Z")
Asking for trouble
Flirting with disaster
Courting danger
Playing with fire
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### Author:  [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2012, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/4 "2012-01-25T23:21:09Z")
Maybe no single word, but lots of phrases. Add “pushing one’s luck” to the list.
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### Author:  [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2012, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/5 "2012-01-25T23:24:24Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> “Hubris” is close to what you want.
Not really. Someone exhibiting hubris might choose to tempt fate (or not), and I’d say that’s as close as it gets – which is to say, not very.
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### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2012, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/6 "2012-01-25T23:29:43Z")
**RealityChuck** is right. Hubris is the word you want. It always implies a bad end for the hubristic. Especially when paired with another Greek term.
The English word _fey_ (from Old English _fæge_) means literally Fate has you in its gunsights. But it views fate as an impersonal force that will get you regardless of your goodness or badness.
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### Author:  [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2012, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/7 "2012-01-25T23:42:25Z")
> [@Johanna](#):
>
> **RealityChuck** is right. Hubris is the word you want.
Is it? It sounds to me like the OP wants a verb.
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### Author:  [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2012, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/8 "2012-01-25T23:57:43Z")
> [@Cartoonacy](#):
>
> Is it? It sounds to me like the OP wants a verb.
The other examples he liked weren’t verbs. Hubris is a very good answer; I’m sure probably is a single-word verb answer too though.
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### Author:  [@Postariti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Postariti)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2012, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/9 "2012-01-26T00:46:31Z")
“The printer hasn’t run out of paper in a while,” doesn’t sound like hubris to me. There’s no pride involved.
I think most people would use “jinxed.” I can’t think of a better work. You’d think there would be one.
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### Author:  [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2012, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/10 "2012-01-26T01:39:14Z")
Hubris is quite close, but I agree it seems there is a notion of sort of willfully reckless abandon involved there. Jinx is kind of close on the other end, not of reckless abandon, but of overconfidence (what could possibly go wrong?). Results that are _expected_ are jinxed by mention of the expectation. Merely pondering the possible seems different.
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### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2012, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/11 "2012-01-26T05:25:43Z")
> [@Cartoonacy](#):
>
> Is it? It sounds to me like the OP wants a verb.
The OP gave a gerund, which functions grammatically like a noun.
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### Author:  [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2012, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/12 "2012-01-26T13:33:11Z")
I agree that hubris isn’t quite right. Hubris implies overconfidence in ones self, wheras ‘tempting fate’ is more at most confidence that bad luck won’t strike.
Best I got is, well, ‘tempting fate’.
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### Author:  [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2012, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/13 "2012-01-26T14:05:48Z")
You can verb any noun, doubly so made-up words, so the part of speech isn’t terribly important.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/14 "2012-01-26T17:06:57Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#):
>
> Maybe no single word, but lots of phrases. Add “pushing one’s luck” to the list.
Or “speak of the devil”, which is short for “speak of the devil, and he appears”.
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### Author:  [@Scholar\_Beardpig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scholar_Beardpig)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2012, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/15 "2012-01-26T19:04:29Z")
I like ‘to foreshadow’ or ‘to x foreshadowsomely.’
“This ship will never sink,” I foreshadowed as the iceberg slid invisibly into view.
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### Author:  [@Gus\_Gusterson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gus_Gusterson)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2012, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/16 "2012-01-26T19:38:05Z")
What about “chancing”? “Nobody has added paper to that printer in a long time. You’re chancing it if you think you can print War and Peace.” My wife, who is from Ireland (so I’m assuming that she picked it up there), calls someone who tempts fate a “chancer” and says “You’re chancing it” or “You’re chancing your arm” a lot (I apparently do a lot of stupid things). “You’re chancing” (to satisfy the “one word” criterion) sounds fine to my ears.
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### Author:  [@TimToyGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimToyGeek)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2012, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/17 "2012-01-26T21:16:26Z")
In Yiddish, this exact circumstance is called ‘The Kinehora’
A classic exchange to illustrate this idea, also called ‘putting the Kinehora on’ the situation is from Young Frankenstein:
Frederick: What a filthy, disgusting job…
Igor: Could be worse.
Frederick: How?
Igor: Could be raining.
Boom! A huge rainstorm blows up and turns their midnight gravedigging into sloshing around in the mud.
So to put the kinehora on something, you deliberately tempt fate verbally, causing that which you observed could be worse to become worse.
Tim
“toy geek”
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### Author:  [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2012, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/18 "2012-01-26T21:31:56Z")
Why are we talking this way?
I don’t know, I thought you wanted to.
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### Author:  [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2012, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/19 "2012-01-28T13:34:31Z")
> [@Gus\_Gusterson](#):
>
> What about “chancing”? “Nobody has added paper to that printer in a long time. You’re chancing it if you think you can print War and Peace.” My wife, who is from Ireland (so I’m assuming that she picked it up there), calls someone who tempts fate a “chancer” and says “You’re chancing it” or “You’re chancing your arm” a lot (I apparently do a lot of stupid things). “You’re chancing” (to satisfy the “one word” criterion) sounds fine to my ears.
Not really. Chancing is more akin to chutzpah than hubris. I suppose it can be used in the way you say but I don’t think chancing is the same as tempting fate. Eta: actually “i wouldn’t chance it if i were you” is pretty much a warning against fate. 🙂
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### Author:  [@jakesteele](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jakesteele)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2012, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-locating-or-if-that-fails-creating-a-word-for-tempting-fate/610634/20 "2012-01-28T19:40:33Z")
Looks like you’re SOL on this one.