foresee

verb fore·see \ fȯr-ˈsē \

|Updated on: 17 Jun 2018

Tip: Synonym Guide

Examples: foresee in a Sentence

Definition of foresee

foresaw play \fȯr-ˈsȯ\; foreseen play \fȯr-ˈsēn\; foreseeing

transitive verb

: to see (something, such as a development) beforehand

He could not have foreseen the consequences of his actions.

She foresaw the company's potential and invested early on.

—

foreseer

play \fȯr-ˈsē-ər, -ˈsir\ noun

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See foresee defined for kids

Examples of foresee in a Sentence

We couldn't have foreseen the consequences of our actions.
He foresees a day when all war will cease.
She foresaw the company's potential and invested early on.

Recent Examples of foresee from the Web

Not even the best Las Vegas oddsmakers could have foreseen the instant success of the Golden Knights, who are redefining the idea of what an expansion team can be.

— nick talbot, San Antonio Express-News, "Writer’s Roundtable: Who should Longhorns play? Alabama or Texas A&M?," 26 May 2018
Obviously, the Philadelphia Police Department hadn't foreseen that a twelve-year-old kid would listen in on its radio transmissions, let alone map out its operations.

— james clapper, CBS News, "Book excerpt: "Facts and Fears" by James Clapper," 24 May 2018
To have foreseen pro basketball’s explosive growth would have been like playing a hunch on Amazon at its opening price of $18 per share.

— tim sullivan, The Courier-Journal, "Former Kentucky Colonel Artis Gilmore: Louisville is ready to handle an NBA team," 28 Apr. 2018
Edmond Tarverdyan, the trainer who has worked the corner for both fighters, has come to understand his boxer well enough to foresee something special, too.

— lance pugmire, latimes.com, "Vanes Martirosyan watched Ronda Rousey's rise to fame, now ready for his turn against Gennady Golovkin," 24 Apr. 2018
To keep the faith of investors, Bezos always includes his 1997 shareholder letter to remind them of his ability to foresee the way the internet would change the nature of shopping.

— spencer soper, Bloomberg.com, "Bezos Says Amazon Has Topped 100 Million Prime Members," 18 Apr. 2018
An adversary could get creative, however, and encode the data in a way that’s impossible to foresee and inextricably linked to the record of financial transactions.

— kevin werbach, WIRED, "Why Porn on the Blockchain Won't Doom Bitcoin," 29 Mar. 2018
Yet their inability to foresee the North's rapid strides over the past several months now ranks among the United States' most significant intelligence failures, current and former officials said in recent interviews.

— author: david e. sanger, william j. broad, Anchorage Daily News, "How North Korea’s nuclear pace caught the U.S. off guard," 7 Jan. 2018
There’s no way Sayer can foresee oncoming climate disaster, if that’s what’s hurtling toward the land his family has worked for the past 130 years in Ventura.

— nathanael johnson, WIRED, "Are Avocados Toast?," 24 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'foresee.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

First Known Use of foresee

before 12th century

in the meaning defined above

See Words from the same year

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foresee Synonyms

Synonyms

anticipate, divine, foreknow, prevision;

envisage, envision, foreshadow, prefigure, visualize;

alert, caution, foretoken, forewarn;

preview;

descry, discern, perceive;

apprehend, dread, fear;

Synonym Discussion of foresee

foresee, foreknow, divine, anticipate mean to know beforehand. foresee implies nothing about how the knowledge is derived and may apply to ordinary reasoning and experience.