anticipation

American  

[an-tis-uh-pey-shuhn] / ænˌtɪs əˈpeɪ ʃən /

noun

• anticipations
  plural

1. the act of anticipating or the state of being anticipated.

2. realization in advance; foretaste.

3. expectation or hope.

4. previous notion; slight previous impression.

5. intuition, foreknowledge, or prescience.

6. Law. a premature withdrawal or assignment of money from a trust estate.

7. Music. a tone introduced in advance of its harmony so that it sounds against the preceding chord.

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anticipation British  

/ ænˌtɪsɪˈpeɪʃən /

noun

1. the act of anticipating; expectation, premonition, or foresight

2. the act of taking or dealing with funds before they are legally available or due

3. music an unstressed, usually short note introduced before a downbeat and harmonically related to the chord immediately following it Compare suspension

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonanticipation
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• anticipations
  plural

Etymology

Origin of anticipation

First recorded in 1540–50; from Middle French, from Latin anticipātiōn-, stem of anticipātiō “innate notion, preconception,” from anticipāt(us) “taken before, anticipated” (past participle of anticipāre “to take before”; see anticipate) + -iō -ion

Explanation

Anticipation is excitement, waiting eagerly for something you know is going to happen. Someone who has just proposed marriage waits in anticipation for a positive reply. Anticipation can be a nervous expectation, like when the birthday party waited in anticipation for Elmer to walk in so they could surprise him. However, anticipation can also mean to be like a Boy Scout: prepared. The weather center's anticipation of the storm prevented anyone from getting hurt. It can refer to something you'd like to prevent from happening, such as "the anticipation of a tax increase next year." Either way, it's a way of looking ahead, just like its Latin roots which mean "to take care of ahead of time."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

anticipation anticipations

The key distinction is that much of the late 1990s telecom buildout created capacity in anticipation of future customers.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 10, 2026

Meanwhile, on Tuesday afternoon, a group of more than two dozen protesters gathered outside the Trump National Golf Club entrance in anticipation of the president’s arrival.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026

Traders went from expecting the Federal Reserve to reduce borrowing costs to positioning bets in the futures market in anticipation of the energy shock necessitating rate increases, according to CME Group data.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026

Prof Maggs bought a wine fridge in anticipation, the perfect dark, cool environment to store it while tests were carried out to prove it was, indeed, a new species.

From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026

The anticipation has ruled his life, and now, finally, the wait is over.

From "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris

It is always filtered through layers of worldviews, social practices, historical memories and anticipations of the future.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2024

And they do that through trying to anticipate how we might get hurt and reacting to those anticipations.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 13, 2023

There were bright songs about times and places, memories and anticipations, “Saturday afternoon” and “the future” — and about how the world of tomorrow might be a more just and peaceful place.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 20, 2021

Only in the 20th century did readers recognize its uncanny anticipations of relativity and the big-bang theory.

From Slate ● Aug. 2, 2021

But his exhortations toward national unity were less descriptions than anticipations, less reminders of the way we were than predictions of what we could become.

From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis

Related Words

• apprehension
• hope
• joy
• prospect