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.
Related Words
See predict.
Other Word Forms
- foreseeable adjective
- foreseer noun
- unforeseeing adjective
- unforeseen adjective
- well-foreseen adjective
Etymology
Origin of foresee
First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English foresēon. See fore-, see 1
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.
He could never have foreseen that a year and a half later, he’d be playing for a longtime Giants rival, already at the third stop of his young career.
From Los Angeles Times
He foresaw the current predicament long before most others did, and he had the courage to confront it long before it was politically convenient to do so.
I foresee this trend will only gain steam as U.S. interest rate cuts, foreign investment, deregulation and GDP growth breathe new life into sectors that have been undervalued or even stymied in recent years.
From MarketWatch
He argued that the founders didn’t foresee the desire of federal lawmakers to hold on to their positions.
The title character and occasional commentator, played as a gloomy babushka in a red headscarf by David Turner, foresees little hope for a glorious future.
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.
