Synonyms

foresee

American

[fawr-see] / fɔrˈsi /

verb (used with object)

to have prescience of; to know in advance; foreknow.

Synonyms:

discern, divine
to see beforehand.

verb (used without object)

to exercise foresight.

foresee British

/ fɔːˈsiː /

verb

(tr; may take a clause as object) to see or know beforehand

he did not foresee that

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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

Inflected Forms

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

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.

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Vocabulary lists containing foresee

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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.

“We must always look to the future. Foresee the future of new inventions. Be unafraid of the new. Delete from our vocabulary the word ‘impossible’,” Elkann quotes the Fiat founder’s mantra as being.

From Reuters • May 27, 2019

AT&T, Apple Foresee Few Problems Glenn Lurie, AT&T's head of emerging devices, says the iPad's ability to gracefully hop between cellular and Wi-Fi connections will help ease any network strain.

From BusinessWeek • Apr. 1, 2010

Foresee, fōr-sē′, v.t. or v.i. to see or know beforehand.—p.adj.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 2 of 4: E-M) by Various

If denial such as brands my brow Be in your heavenly regions, too, confessed, Oh may it prove the truth that your still eyes Foresee the end of all futurities!

From Along the Shore by Lathrop, Rose Hawthorne

And that I should not Foresee it, not prevent this journey!

From The Piccolomini by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023