foresee
Americanverb (used with object)
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foresees,
present (3rd person singular)
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foresaw,
past
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foreseen,
past participle
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foreseeing
present participle
verb (used without object)
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foresees,
present (3rd person singular)
-
foresaw,
past
-
foreseen,
past participle
-
foreseeing
present participle
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.
Synonym Usage
See predict.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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foreseernoun
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foreseeableadjective
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unforeseeingadjective
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unforeseenadjective
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well-foreseenadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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foreseesimple
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foreseessimple
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have foreseenperfect
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has foreseenperfect
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am foreseeingprogressive
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are foreseeingprogressive
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is foreseeingprogressive
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have been foreseeingperfect progressive
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has been foreseeingperfect progressive
Past
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foresawsimple
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had foreseenperfect
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was foreseeingprogressive
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were foreseeingprogressive
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had been foreseeingperfect progressive
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.
Vocabulary lists containing foresee
Power Prefix: fore-
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Walk Two Moons
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "F"
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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:
Some failures will be genuinely hard to foresee, and a standard that treats all harm as blameworthy will simply be ineffective.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
He failed to foresee the return to form of small-cap stocks in the U.S.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 2, 2026
“If I can foresee this, then I think an engineer who’s designing the product can foresee it too.”
From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2026
Alex: I foresee another trophyless season ahead for Rangers - no cohesion, no fight, no skill, nothing.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
How he would face the mighty Emperor and confess his dereliction of duty, he could not foresee.
From "Tiger, Tiger" by Lynne Reid Banks
That foresees a world of disrupted trade through tariffs and conflicts over chokepoints, more costly onshoring and less immigration, while political systems test the limits of spending to fund their militaries.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026
It foresees an operating margin of 13.6% to 13.8% for the year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 27, 2026
If Fidesz were to win those seats, he foresees a potential victory.
From BBC ● Apr. 11, 2026
The project foresees the building of up to 6,000 new sites, with construction expected to take place in phased deployment over multiple years, Swisscom said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 19, 2026
“Mr. Curtain foresees a ‘call to greater duty’ in the near future.
From "The Mysterious Benedict Society" by Trenton Lee Stewart
Others pointed to lengthy investing track records when launching hedge funds or venture-capital funds; Aschenbrenner’s stature stemmed from a 165-page essay in 2024, “Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead,” that foresaw the path of AI’s development.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
At the start of the season nobody foresaw much, if any, of this.
From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026
The signers of the Declaration of Independence never foresaw a World Cup, much less an American World Cup team.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 4, 2026
Has the office served its purpose, or has it lingered one bureaucracy layered on top of a bunch of other bureaucracies, as some critics foresaw?
From Slate ● Jun. 15, 2026
Otherwise, he noticed nothing unusual and foresaw no difficulty in improving the kiln’s operation.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
“The report card is pretty unimpressive. We all could have foreseen that this wasn’t going to go great.”
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026
But Sanchez on Wednesday said on X that with the information available "no one could have foreseen the migration crisis that unfolded".
From Barron's ● Sep. 10, 2026
Anyway all the flirtations and memoranda came to nothing, as foreseen in these pages and elsewhere.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
He said he had not foreseen a time when he would be monitoring so many sites and "certainly not having 16 choughlets fledge".
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026
Just as she had foreseen, Aureliano Segundo went back to her house as soon as the honeymoon was over.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
People could be forgiven for not foreseeing the earth-shattering events that were around the bend—the Depression, World War II, the birth of Elvis Presley.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 30, 2025
He is shifting Brazil exposure to longer-term bonds, foreseeing a “neutral” interest rate of 10% to 11%, eventually.
From Barron's ● Dec. 23, 2025
In his article, Mr Wallace says he thinks Mr Netanyahu feels "shame" for not foreseeing the deadly attacks - especially as "someone who presented himself as a security hawk and tough guy".
From BBC ● Dec. 18, 2023
Regulators’ fascination with foreseeing how the tech giants could harm competition stems largely from their perceived failure to do so in the past.
From New York Times ● Apr. 27, 2023
Already my mother would admit to foreseeing herself in her own mother, a woman grown old, bald and bowlegged, after a hard lifetime of working.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
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.
