Definitions

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

  • adjective Of or relating to prescience.
  • adjective Possessing prescience.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Foreknowing; having knowledge of events before they take place.

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

  • adjective Having knowledge of coming events; foreseeing; conscious beforehand.

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

  • adjective Having knowledge of events before they take place; possessing or exhibiting prescience.

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

  • adjective perceiving the significance of events before they occur

Etymologies

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

[French, from Old French, from Latin praesciēns, praescient-, present participle of praescīre, to know beforehand : prae-, pre- + scīre, to know; see skei- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin praescire ("know beforehand"), from prae + scire.

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Examples

  • Whether Stephenson's vision of a totally privatized America will turn out to be equally prescient is at least one theme of Jody Freeman and Martha Minow's edited volume, Government by Contract.

    David Isenberg: Admiral Bob's Global Security: The Future of PSC? David Isenberg 2010

  • Whether Stephenson's vision of a totally privatized America will turn out to be equally prescient is at least one theme of Jody Freeman and Martha Minow's edited volume, Government by Contract.

    David Isenberg: Admiral Bob's Global Security: The Future of PSC? David Isenberg 2010

  • Buckley warned in prescient terms against what would become the Rovite heresy at the Xth Party Congress in 1976.

    Matthew Yglesias » Independent Thinking! 2007

  • He's made some bad ones, to be sure - he was notably burned by telecom companies during the dotcom bust - but over the course of a few decades of investing, Gilder has become known as a prescient technophile.

    Forbes.com: News Chris Barth 2011

  • Look up the word prescient, then reread the last few posts.

    Think Progress 2009

  • Look up the word prescient, then reread the last few posts.

    Think Progress 2009

  • In a groundbreaking new book that Publishers Weekly has already called "prescient" -

    intellectual properties 2009

  • In a groundbreaking new book that Publishers Weekly has already called "prescient" -

    intellectual properties 2009

  • In a groundbreaking new book that Publishers Weekly has already called "prescient" -

    intellectual properties 2009

  • In a groundbreaking new book that Publishers Weekly has already called "prescient" -

    intellectual properties 2009

Comments

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  • This is an excellent word, sounds like precious, describe foresight, or the ability to see into the future, whether figuratively or literally.

    July 7, 2007

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