premonition

noun

pre·mo·ni·tion ˌprē-mə-ˈni-shən

ˌpre-

Synonyms of premonition next

: previous notice or warning : forewarning

: anticipation of an event without conscious reason : presentiment

Examples of premonition in a Sentence

She had a premonition that he would call. she had a premonition that her cat would somehow get hurt that day

Recent Examples on the Web The narrative continues to weave through the farmland and its homesteads, chaos traveling at warp speed, lending to the unsettling premonition that nobody gets out unscathed. —

Holly Jones, Variety, 6 Sep. 2023 That 1903 novella was about a man, John Marcher, who fails to fully live his life because he’s seized by premonitions of catastrophe that never visibly come to pass. —

Guy Lodge, Variety, 3 Sep. 2023 On the way home from Massachusetts, Gage had a premonition of his own. —

Elisabeth Garber-Paul, Rolling Stone, 6 Sep. 2023 In the middle of the festivities, though, Barbie embarrassingly blurts out her own sudden premonition of death. —

Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 21 July 2023 Strange events occur: People have premonitions; the distant past bleeds into the present; a dead body returns to life. —

Maggie Doherty, The New Republic, 16 June 2023 The young Bulloch’s premonition about something not being right was correct. —

Cameron Buford | Cbuford@al.com, al, 6 Apr. 2023 Alisa had had a premonition that her happiness with Alexander Yefimovich would not last, but the premonition had told her nothing about the newborn baby. —

Lyudmila Ulitskaya, The New Yorker, 27 Mar. 2023 This study built on a similar study conducted in the 1980s, which found that volunteers who were led to believe that an interaction partner liked them shared more about themselves, disagreed less, and had a more positive attitude—ultimately making the premonition come true. —

Marisa G. Franco, The Atlantic, 25 Aug. 2022 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'premonition.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Middle English premunition, from Anglo-French, from Medieval Latin premunition-, premunitio, alteration of Late Latin praemonitio, from Latin praemonēre to warn in advance, from prae- + monēre to warn — more at mind

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler

The first known use of premonition was in the 15th century

See more words from the same century