foresee
Americanverb (used with object)
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foresees,
present (3rd person singular)
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foresaw,
past
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foreseen,
past participle
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foreseeing
present participle
verb (used without object)
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foresees,
present (3rd person singular)
-
foresaw,
past
-
foreseen,
past participle
-
foreseeing
present participle
verb
Usage
What does foresee mean? To foresee is to know in advance, as in With all the rain we’ve been having, it was easy to foresee that the river would overflow its banks. Foresee is different from predict or forecast because to foresee is to know, while to predict or forecast is to guess or calculate rather than to know. Sometimes, though, foresee is used as a synonym for predict to exaggerate one’s confidence in a prediction. Example: I can foresee where this is going and I want no part of it.
Synonym Usage
See predict.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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foreseernoun
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foreseeableadjective
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unforeseeingadjective
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unforeseenadjective
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well-foreseenadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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foreseesimple
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foreseessimple
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have foreseenperfect
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has foreseenperfect
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am foreseeingprogressive
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are foreseeingprogressive
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is foreseeingprogressive
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have been foreseeingperfect progressive
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has been foreseeingperfect progressive
Past
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foresawsimple
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had foreseenperfect
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was foreseeingprogressive
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were foreseeingprogressive
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had been foreseeingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of foresee
First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English foresēon. See fore-, see 1
Explanation
When you foresee something, you predict or realistically envision it happening. Did you foresee your team winning the playoffs, or were you surprised? Think of foresee as “to see before.” Prophets in literature are able to foresee events that come to pass; in Greek mythology Tiresias is known for his ability to foresee the future. But foresee is not always linked to a supernatural sense. Regular people can foresee events by imagining them taking place — and sometimes we use this as a way of prevention. If you foresee yourself failing geometry if you don’t study more, you will probably hit the books.
Vocabulary lists containing foresee
Power Prefix: fore-
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Walk Two Moons
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "F"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“If I can foresee this, then I think an engineer who’s designing the product can foresee it too.”
From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2026
"We do not foresee a restart within the next 10 days," plant director Romeo Urjan told the AFP news agency.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
Other times it’s getting married or having a kid or trying to foresee retiring one day.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 11, 2026
Ortberg told analysts last week he did not foresee problems with Boeing's supply chain in lifting monthly MAX production to 52 jets.
From Barron's ● Aug. 3, 2026
“She couldn’t foresee these troubles when I asked for her hand.”
From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead
In its first look into 2027, the International Energy Agency said it foresees the return of an oil glut due to record investments.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 18, 2026
It foresees an operating margin of 13.6% to 13.8% for the year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 27, 2026
Toll Brothers expects deliveries in a range from 2,600 to 2,700 units in its third quarter and foresees an adjusted home sale gross margin of 25.25%.
From Barron's ● May 19, 2026
If Fidesz were to win those seats, he foresees a potential victory.
From BBC ● Apr. 11, 2026
“Mr. Curtain foresees a ‘call to greater duty’ in the near future.
From "The Mysterious Benedict Society" by Trenton Lee Stewart
Similarly, General Shirreff wrote the political thriller "War With Russia" in 2016, in which he foresaw Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2026
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has said no-one foresaw the influx of 72,000 migrants in the exclave of Ceuta, as pressure mounts over his handling of the crisis.
From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026
He foresaw a future in which Eliza would learn to model the user and the world through conversations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
Has the office served its purpose, or has it lingered one bureaucracy layered on top of a bunch of other bureaucracies, as some critics foresaw?
From Slate ● Jun. 15, 2026
Colonel Aureliano Buendía became aware somehow of those changes and foresaw their consequences.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
“The report card is pretty unimpressive. We all could have foreseen that this wasn’t going to go great.”
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026
But Sanchez on Wednesday said on X that with the information available "no one could have foreseen the migration crisis that unfolded".
From Barron's ● Sep. 10, 2026
Anyway all the flirtations and memoranda came to nothing, as foreseen in these pages and elsewhere.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
He said he had not foreseen a time when he would be monitoring so many sites and "certainly not having 16 choughlets fledge".
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026
But what Veblen could not have foreseen is where some of that pressure is coming from, says Juliet B. Schor, a professor of sociology at Boston College who has written widely on consumer culture.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
He is shifting Brazil exposure to longer-term bonds, foreseeing a “neutral” interest rate of 10% to 11%, eventually.
From Barron's ● Dec. 23, 2025
The older she’s gotten, however, the more trouble she has had foreseeing ever getting married at all.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2025
Zarqa Al Yamama is the story of a blue-eyed tribal matriarch with the gift of foreseeing the future in pre-Islamic Arabia.
From BBC ● Apr. 26, 2024
Regulators’ fascination with foreseeing how the tech giants could harm competition stems largely from their perceived failure to do so in the past.
From New York Times ● Apr. 27, 2023
“Send your wife up to the wedding,” exclaimed the Doctor, foreseeing a happy solution.
From "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
