seer

¹

[ see-er seer ]

noun

1. a person who sees; see; observer.
2. a person who prophesies future events; prophet:

   Industry seers predicted higher profits.

   Synonyms: augur, soothsayer, oracle

3. a person endowed with profound moral and spiritual insight or knowledge; a wise person or sage who possesses intuitive powers.
4. a person who is reputed to have special powers of divination, as a crystal gazer or palmist.

seer

²

[ seer, sair ]

noun

1. ser.

seer

¹

/ sɪə /

noun

1. a person who can supposedly see into the future; prophet
2. a person who professes supernatural powers
3. a person who sees

seer

²

/ sɪə /

noun

1. See ser
   a variant spelling of ser

Derived Forms

• ˈseeress, noun:feminine

Word History and Origins

Origin of seer¹

Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see ¹, -er ¹

Origin of seer²

First recorded in 1610–20

Example Sentences

To romanticize them as seers — as when, for instance, we praise Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein for supposedly anticipating how Stein would age — is to misunderstand their role.

From Washington Post

Bob Dylan makes the theory of relativity worth caring about at all: he is a seer.

From The Daily Beast

I especially love the relationship between the girl narrator, Abilene Tucker, and Miss Sadie, the wise older seer of Manifest.

From The Daily Beast

The Amazing Kreskin, venerable showbiz seer, says he can discern who is telling the truth: Cain or his accusers.

From The Daily Beast

Gilliatt, who was a kind of seer amid the secrets of nature, stood there musing, and sensible of confused emotions.

From Project Gutenberg

Without exaggeration, he manages to suggest the intervening aerial medium between the seer and the thing seen.

From Project Gutenberg

The Kaiser has those terrible haunted eyes that have marked the seer's presentment of him from quite an early stage of the war.

From Project Gutenberg

A seer is one who has seeing eyes which clearly note and comprehend what most people pass a hundred times nor care to see.

From Project Gutenberg

A mysterious lucidity of mind results, which converts the student into the seer, and the poet into a prophet.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• forecaster
• prophet
• soothsayer