foretell applies to the telling of the coming of a future event by any procedure or any source of information.
seers foretold the calamity
predict commonly implies inference from facts or accepted laws of nature.
astronomers predicted an eclipse
forecast adds the implication of anticipating eventualities and differs from predict in being usually concerned with probabilities rather than certainties.
forecast snow
prophesy connotes inspired or mystic knowledge of the future especially as the fulfilling of divine threats or promises.
prophesying a new messiah
prognosticate is used less often than the other words; it may suggest learned or skilled interpretation, but more often it is simply a colorful substitute for predict or prophesy.
prognosticating the future
Examples of foretell in a Sentence
We cannot foretell the future.
a 16th-century astrologer who, some claim, accurately foretold 20th-century events
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But does the wet forecast foretell a cool-down?—Howard Cohen, Miami Herald, 27 Aug. 2025 For most, such latitude foretells a long stretch to go.—Noah Barsky, Forbes.com, 20 Aug. 2025 No scripture foretells GPUs, gradient descent, or multimodal transformers.—Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 15 Aug. 2025 The overall unemployment rate of 4.2% continued to hover near a historically low level, but unemployment rose among Black workers, which can foretell job losses among other groups.—Max Zahn, ABC News, 6 Aug. 2025 See All Example Sentences for foretell
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