premonition
Americannoun
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premonitions
plural
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a feeling of anticipation of or anxiety over a future event; presentiment.
He had a vague premonition of danger.
- Synonyms:
- sign, omen, portent, foreboding
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a forewarning.
noun
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an intuition of a future, usually unwelcome, occurrence; foreboding
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an early warning of a future event; forewarning
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of premonition
First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English premunicioun, from Late Latin praemonitiōn-, stem of praemonitiō “a forewarning”; equivalent to pre- + monition; also cf. praemunire
Explanation
A premonition is a strong feeling or sense of foreboding that something is about to happen — such as an eerie feeling on a seemingly calm day that a storm is coming. The noun premonition literally means "an advance warning," derived from the Latin prefix prae-, meaning "before" or "in advance," and the Latin verb monere, "to warn or advise." However, a premonition is not a literal advance warning, like a letter in the mail that says, "Don't come visit next week because the electricity will be out," or a sign on a path that says, "Warning! Danger! Keep out!" It's more of a feeling, a hunch, or perhaps a dream, that signals a future event.
Vocabulary lists containing premonition
The Outsiders
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Power Prefix: pre-
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Metamorphosis
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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:
When access to these documents was finally promised, three months later, Mathipa had a premonition that he would be murdered - according to Brig Paulina Sekgobela, his commanding officer.
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2026
Oddly, that cigar turned out to be an unwitting premonition.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 28, 2025
He had a premonition that history would repeat itself.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 24, 2025
Our former faith in manifest destiny always included another possibility; let’s call it a premonition of manifest doom.
From Salon ● Jan. 21, 2025
I’ve got a cold premonition that I know what’s waiting for me inside.
From "X: A Novel" by Ilyasah Shabazz
But if these rumbling premonitions have remained true across multiple eras of an ever-evolving media landscape, have we really learned anything?
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
He said he had no premonitions that things were about to go haywire.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 27, 2026
His mostly unpublished premonitions were eerily prescient: Among others, he famously intuited the existence of the neutron from prior experiments.
From Science Magazine ● Dec. 20, 2023
But his pleas fell on deaf ears, and his premonitions would come true.
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2023
All were engrossed in early-night reminiscences about dreams, figures, premonitions.
From "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison
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.
