Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The future.
  • noun The quality or condition of being in or of the future.
  • noun A future event or possibility.
  • noun Sports A futurity race.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state of being future, or not yet existent.
  • noun Future time; time to come.
  • noun The world in future times; that which or those who will exist in the future.
  • noun A future event; something yet to come: in this sense a plural is used.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun State of being that is yet to come; future state.
  • noun Future time; time to come; the future.
  • noun Event to come; a future event.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun the future
  • noun the state of being in the future.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the time yet to come
  • noun the quality of being in or of the future

Etymologies

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Examples

  • He spoke of a new era that was dawning upon the world; an era that would link soul to soul, and the present life to what we call futurity, with a closeness that should finally convert both worlds into one great, mutually conscious brotherhood.

    The Blithedale Romance Nathaniel Hawthorne 1834

  • The revelation of the secrets of futurity is sweet to one at first, but bitter and distasteful to our natural man, when we learn the cross which is to be borne before the crown shall be won.

    Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible 1871

  • In the midst of an eloquent and impassioned remonstrance with the Sceptic who, even when overwhelmed by the disasters of a present world, renounces all trust in futurity, she weaves some touching reflections upon a catastrophe, the remembrance of which will ever fall with surpassing sadness upon the spirit of a great people.

    A Review of 'The Sceptic; a Poem' 1819

  • I am the celestial Spirit to whom eternal futurity is known.

    Selections from _The Last Man_ 1806

  • As though pursuing the serpentine river that in a Claudean painting unifies the diminutive human foreground with its vast skies, we now follow this "wanderer Man" into the "boundless void" of "futurity" -- or, in more painful moments, back into this human dilemma: "when affliction bade his spirit bleed,/If 'twere a Father's love or Tyrant's wrath decreed?"

    Hemans, Heber, and _Superstition and Revelation_ 1998

  • To the extent that apocalyptic eschatology is retained in the New Testament this mythological conception has the existential meaning of representing futurity, that is, the charismatic, or the character of grace of God's liberating word: new life fulfills itself solely in the acceptance of the “freedom of the children of God.”

    ESCHATOLOGY WALTER SCHMITHALS 1968

  • On the third point: hope implies a defect, namely the futurity of blessedness, which will cease when blessedness is present.

    Nature and Grace: Selections from the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas 1954

  • Reply Obj. 3: Hope implies a certain defect, namely the futurity of happiness, which ceases when happiness is present: whereas fear implies a natural defect in a creature, in so far as it is infinitely distant from God, and this defect will remain even in heaven.

    Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province Aquinas Thomas

  • But we must remember that the dull vision of mortal man cannot pierce the veil of futurity, which is as crystal to the all-beholding eye of the First

    The Skylark of Space Lee Hawkins Garby 1922

  • When men have once allowed themselves to think no more of what is to befall them after life, they readily lapse into that complete and brutal indifference to futurity, which is but too conformable to some propensities of mankind.

    democracy in America, volume 2 1838

Comments

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  • "...the fact itself brought what had been a vague futurity into the almost immediate present."

    --P. O'Brian, The Commodore, 9–10

    March 16, 2008

  • "By playing at Chess then, we may learn: I. Foresight, which looks a little into futurity, and considers the consequences that may attend an action…"

    - Benjamin Franklin,"The Morals of Chess",(1750)

    February 6, 2009

  • a concept onto which Allen Ginsberg hitched his misogyny in the poem `This form of life needs sex`

    April 11, 2009

  • He's being ugly, but I find it a compelling poem. Full text is here.

    April 12, 2009