Fates

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Fates (Gk. Moirai; Lat. Fāta or Parcae). The Greek Fates, to which the Latin Parcae (so called from parğrğ, to bring forth) were in all respects assimilated, were represented from Homer onwards as old women spinning, three in number according to Hesiod, the children of Nyx (Night) or, somewhat allegorically, of Zeus and Themis (Righteousness). The three were called Klōtho (‘spinner’), who held the distaff, Lachğsis (‘apportioner’), who drew off the thread, and Atrŏpŏs (‘inflexible’), who cut it short, Milton's ‘blind Fury with th'abhorred shears’. The Parcae were named Nōna, Decuma, and Morta, meaning respectively, a nine-months' birth (premature, by Roman inclusive reckoning), a ten-months' (fullterm) birth, and a still-birth. They could have been in origin birth-goddesses who became abstract powers of destiny only later. Their spinning may be thought of as completed at the moment of birth or continuing throughout life until all the thread is drawn off the distaff. They may also weave; the images in the poets are various. They are present at all great beginnings, as at the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, where they also sang. The Moirai could be worshipped as birth-goddesses—Athenian brides offered them locks of hair, and women swore by them.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: a group of 3 goddesses of destiny
  Synonym: the Fates