Definitions

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

  • noun Expectancy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act or state of expecting; anticipatory belief or desire.
  • noun Something on which expectations or hopes are founded; the object of expectation or hope.
  • noun Same as expectative, 2.

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

  • noun The act of expecting; expectation.
  • noun That which is expected, or looked or waited for with interest; the object of expectation or hope.
  • noun (Law) one the possession of which a person is entitled to have at some future time, either as a remainder or reversion, or on the death of some one.

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

  • noun Anticipation, hope.
  • noun Alternative spelling of expectancy.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • In Sierra Leone there is the expectance that the more fortunate people within a family take care of the less fortunate in the sense of giving school fees, maybe employing people in the businesses, Hanson added.

    Sierra Leone Diaspora Set Up Businesses Back Home 2010

  • Fair enough, but that's still compelling reason to get in on the ground floor now and begin creating reason for today's user numbers in expectance of tomorrow's, if they actually come.

    Second Life Business Exodus? 2007

  • Perhaps the father would have liked to walk that evening in the lanes and fields where he had wandered as a young fellow: where he had first courted and first kissed the young girl he loved — poor child — who had waited for him so faithfully and fondly, who had passed so many a day of patient want and meek expectance, to be repaid by such a scant holiday and brief fruition.

    The Newcomes 2006

  • Larry: The expectance that all blacks have to think same way on a list of issues seems like an incredibly racist idea.

    Is “Race Traitor” Racist? Depends on Who Says It 2005

  • The expectance that all blacks have to think same way on a list of issues seems like an incredibly racist idea.

    Is “Race Traitor” Racist? Depends on Who Says It 2005

  • They signified, much more mysteriously, expectance.

    Flush: a biography 2004

  • The first post, where I completely went off track, was trying to say that virtual items don't have any more or less value or expectance placed on them.

    You Can't Take It With You 2004

  • Petrushka watched him with strange expectance and with marked curiosity followed every movement he made, which extremely embarrassed Mr. Golyadkin.

    The Double 2003

  • A moment so filled with such expectance and longing that I almost do not want to witness its occurrence.

    The Rules of Attraction Ellis, Bret Easton 1963

  • Let the distant reader imagine an audience of three thousand persons awaiting in breathless expectance the entrance upon the

    The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 Volume 23, Number 1 Various

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