foreshadow
Americanverb (used with object)
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foreshadows,
present (3rd person singular)
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foreshadowed,
past participle, past
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foreshadowing
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
foreshadowsimple
-
foreshadowssimple
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have foreshadowedperfect
-
has foreshadowedperfect
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am foreshadowingprogressive
-
are foreshadowingprogressive
-
is foreshadowingprogressive
-
have been foreshadowingperfect progressive
-
has been foreshadowingperfect progressive
Past
-
foreshadowedsimple
-
had foreshadowedperfect
-
was foreshadowingprogressive
-
were foreshadowingprogressive
-
had been foreshadowingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of foreshadow
Explanation
To foreshadow is to predict something or to give a hint of what is to come. Your kid sister's ability to take apart a toaster and put it back together might foreshadow a successful career in electronics. The verb foreshadow can mean "to warn" and often has a suggestion of something bad to come, though sometimes it's more neutral or shows examples of both good and bad predictions. Dark gray clouds foreshadow a thunderstorm, just as spring showers foreshadow May flowers. What is foreshadowed doesn't always happen, though. A story might not foreshadow a happily-ever-after ending, but it can take an unexpected twist where the villain turns out to be a hero.
Vocabulary lists containing foreshadow
The SAT: Language of the Test, List 1
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Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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TEKS ELAR Academic Vocabulary List (5th-7th grades)
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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:
Indeed, months of drought and heat waves tend to foreshadow the fiercest wildfires.
From Salon ● Aug. 3, 2026
Yet many of the body plans seen in those ancient animals foreshadow features that later appeared in dinosaurs, birds, and other groups.
From Science Daily ● May 29, 2026
"You don't have to dramatise these things; you should, at least, acknowledge or foreshadow them."
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2026
The experience of Woodies residents foreshadow what other communities across America could experience as the frequency of costly natural disasters increases.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 11, 2026
Sturtevant’s rudimentary genetic map would foreshadow the vast and elaborate efforts to map genes along the human genome in the 1990s.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
History tells us that large and rapidly growing debt in major economies often foreshadows a financial crisis.
From Barron's ● Mar. 7, 2026
But there was a twist that foreshadows the uncertain new path of Venezuela’s leaders.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 21, 2026
Viewed against such a prism, this foreshadows a period of sloppy price action or correction for the stock market.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 24, 2025
Analysts suggest imminent, further base rate cuts by the Bank of England appear unlikely, and uncertainty always foreshadows a Budget.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2025
“The assignment of the terrific P-51 Mustang plane to all of the Negro pilots foreshadows important missions and sweeps ahead for them as the war enters its decisive stage,” wrote the Norfolk Journal and Guide.
From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
Visitors also encountered the phonograph and early mechanical fastening devices that foreshadowed later developments in clothing closures.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 16, 2026
His comments upon exiting might have foreshadowed the current difficulties.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 17, 2026
Andreessen’s prescient call foreshadowed 15 years of transformation and arguably trillions in value creation.
From Barron's ● Mar. 13, 2026
In a move that foreshadowed Parton’s future as a feminist firebrand of her time, she contracted a lawyer and found a room for her daughters and herself in the Marlboro Hotel in Boston.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 27, 2026
Gravesend had been swallowed by a heavy, chilled night, the kind that could have foreshadowed snow.
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
One of the phenomena examined in “Out of Time” is why more Pompeiians didn’t flee during or after the foreshadowing earthquakes, and that’s a fascinating area of study all its own.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
It was also foreshadowing for the young professionals in the audience who had not yet learned that being good at your job, or even great, wasn’t enough to keep it.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2026
So far, neither side is showing signs of backing down, foreshadowing a fight that could take years.
From Salon ● Mar. 27, 2026
Reinhart, the BNY economist, said the absence of foreshadowing makes Waller’s dissent more consequential.
From Barron's ● Jan. 29, 2026
For there were really two dreams, the first like a dim, blurred, infernal foreshadowing of the second.
From "Go Tell It on the Mountain" by James Baldwin
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.
