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.
“You’ve got people coming in and doing things with the ETF wrapper that were probably not foreseen in any way.”
Yet Reganti also doesn’t foresee a significant further drop in 10-year rates, even if the Federal Reserve probably has more flexibility to lower rates after recent jobs and inflation data.
From MarketWatch
Playing at Knott’s has forged meaningful connections to the community in ways Dangerously never foresaw in his early rock ‘n’ roll days.
From Los Angeles Times
The plan for 2025 to 2035 foresees more use of the country's 57 nuclear power plants and the construction of six new ones, as well as more energy from offshore wind farms.
From Barron's
For the full year, the company foresees revenue growth in the mid-teens, with rentals revenue rising about 30% from the year prior.
From Barron's
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.
