Definitions

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

  • intransitive verb To see as a probable occurrence; expect.
  • intransitive verb To think of (a future event) with pleasure; look forward to.
  • intransitive verb To deal with beforehand; act so as to mitigate, nullify, or prevent: synonym: expect.
  • intransitive verb To react to (someone) abruptly, especially to prevent someone from continuing or progressing.
  • intransitive verb To serve as a forerunner to or previous indication of.
  • intransitive verb To use in advance, as income not yet available.
  • intransitive verb To pay (a debt) before it is due.
  • intransitive verb To think, speak, or write about a matter in advance.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To seize or take beforehand.
  • To be before in doing something; take action in advance of; precede, prevent, or preclude by prior action.
  • To take, do, use, etc., before the proper time; precipitate, as an action or event: as, the advocate has anticipated that part of his argument.
  • To realize beforehand; foretaste or foresee; have a view or impression of beforehand; look forward to; expect: as, I never anticipated such a disaster; to anticipate the pleasures of an entertainment.
  • To occupy the attention of before the proper time.
  • Synonyms To get the start of, forestall.
  • To forecast, count upon, prepare one's self for, calculate upon.
  • To treat of something, as in a narrative, before the proper time.

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

  • transitive verb To be before in doing; to do or take before another; to preclude or prevent by prior action.
  • transitive verb To take up or introduce beforehand, or before the proper or normal time; to cause to occur earlier or prematurely.
  • transitive verb To foresee (a wish, command, etc.) and do beforehand that which will be desired.
  • transitive verb To foretaste or foresee; to have a previous view or impression of

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

  • verb transitive To act before (someone), especially to prevent an action.
  • verb to take up or introduce (something) prematurely.
  • verb to know of (something) before it happens; to expect.
  • verb to eagerly wait for (something)

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

  • verb realize beforehand
  • verb act in advance of; deal with ahead of time
  • verb be excited or anxious about
  • verb regard something as probable or likely
  • verb make a prediction about; tell in advance
  • verb be a forerunner of or occur earlier than

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin anticipāre, anticipāt-, to take before : ante-, ante- + capere, to take; see kap- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin anticipatus, perfect passive participle of anticipare ("anticipate"); from ante ("before"), + capere ("take"). See Capable.

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Examples

  • What one may not so easily anticipate is the proverbial axe falling on a loved one while you stand helplessly by wishing it could be you instead of them but knowing full well that you do not get to make that choice.

    Paul Kerr: My Beautiful Bald Wife Paul Kerr 2010

  • What one may not so easily anticipate is the proverbial axe falling on a loved one while you stand helplessly by wishing it could be you instead of them but knowing full well that you do not get to make that choice.

    Paul Kerr: My Beautiful Bald Wife Paul Kerr 2010

  • What one may not so easily anticipate is the proverbial axe falling on a loved one while you stand helplessly by wishing it could be you instead of them but knowing full well that you do not get to make that choice.

    Paul Kerr: My Beautiful Bald Wife Paul Kerr 2010

  • The really hard thing to anticipate is the completely game-changing advances that occur every so often.

    Boing Boing 2009

  • Use 1 or 2% for increased benefits on those who had higher incomes and the balance to help fund the program ... including reducing debt today in anticipate of the baby boomer crunch.

    Defending Social Security, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

  • What one may not so easily anticipate is the proverbial axe falling on a loved one while you stand helplessly by wishing it could be you instead of them but knowing full well that you do not get to make that choice.

    Paul Kerr: My Beautiful Bald Wife Paul Kerr 2010

  • Yours truly just took this test and scored 84.8% (some of the questions were harder than you might anticipate from a test like this) … and I happen to be a lifelong liberal Democrat!

    Think Progress » Beck condemns O’Keefe’s operation: ‘If they were doing that — that’s Watergate. Insanely stupid and illegal.’ 2010

  • What I didn't anticipate is how much he would continue the very worst of Bush policies, particularly in the "national security" arena (refusing to enforce the law in particular).

    Yes, it does (Jack Bog's Blog) 2009

  • What most people anticipate is that he would help her pay off the debt by asking his own contributors to chip in (with new contributions), or perhaps headlining a fundraiser or series of fundraisers for her.

    The Time Bomb in Hillary Clinton’s Bank Account - Swampland - TIME.com 2008

  • The correct course of action, which the markets now anticipate, is that the banks should make a rights issue to their shareholders to raise money to offset the losses that they have to own up to.

    Archive 2008-04-01 2008

Comments

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  • This means you are expecting something and preparing for it.

    December 24, 2006

  • No one can anticipate the results of the games.

    April 7, 2007