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presage

Definitions

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

  • noun An indication or warning of a future occurrence; an omen.
  • noun A feeling or intuition of what is going to occur; a presentiment.
  • noun Prophetic significance or meaning.
  • noun Archaic A prediction.
  • intransitive verb To indicate or warn of in advance; portend.
  • intransitive verb To have a presentiment of.
  • intransitive verb To foretell or predict.
  • intransitive verb To make or utter a prediction.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Something which foreshows, portends, or gives warning of a future event; a prognostic; an omen.
  • noun A foreboding; a presentiment; a feeling that something is to happen; a prophetic impression.
  • noun Foreknowledge; prescience.
  • noun Prophetic significance or import.
  • noun Synonyms Sign, Augury, etc. See omen and foretell.
  • To foreshow or foretoken; signify beforehand, as by an omen or prognostic; give warning of.
  • To have a presentiment or prophetic impression of; forebode.
  • To foretell; predict; calculate beforehand.
  • To point out.
  • =Syn. 3. Predict, Prophesy, etc. See foretell.
  • To have a presentiment of the future; have foreknowledge.

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

  • transitive verb To have a presentiment of; to feel beforehand; to foreknow.
  • transitive verb To foretell; to predict; to foreshow; to indicate.
  • intransitive verb To form or utter a prediction; -- sometimes used with of.
  • noun Something which foreshows or portends a future event; a prognostic; an omen; an augury.
  • noun Power to look the future, or the exercise of that power; foreknowledge; presentiment.

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

  • noun A warning of a future event; an omen.
  • noun An intuition of a future event; a presentiment.
  • verb transitive To predict or foretell something.
  • verb intransitive To make a prediction.

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

  • noun a foreboding about what is about to happen
  • noun a sign of something about to happen
  • verb indicate by signs

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, from Latin praesāgium, from praesāgīre, to perceive beforehand : prae-, pre- + sāgīre, to perceive; see sāg- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

  • Proud men are frequently most proud, and insolent, and haughty, just before their destruction, so that it is a certain presage that they are upon the brink of it.

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume III (Job to Song of Solomon) 1721

  • Note, Pride will have a fall; it is the certain presage and forerunner of it.

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume IV (Isaiah to Malachi) 1721

  • He is haughty and imperious: He is a proud man, and his pride is a certain presage of his fall coming on.

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume IV (Isaiah to Malachi) 1721

  • Does the creation of such an enlightened tag presage a whole series of such musings?

    Spare me misplaced cries of 'sexism' Ms Robinson 2008

  • As Mrs Varden distinctly heard, and was intended to hear, all that Miggs said, and as these words appeared to convey in metaphorical terms a presage or foreboding that she would at some early period droop beneath her trials and take an easy flight towards the stars, she immediately began to languish, and taking a volume of the Manual from a neighbouring table, leant her arm upon it as though she were Hope and that her Anchor.

    Barnaby Rudge 2007

  • As Mrs Varden distinctly heard, and was intended to hear, all that Miggs said, and as these words appeared to convey in metaphorical terms a presage or foreboding that she would at some early period droop beneath her trials and take an easy flight towards the stars, she immediately began to languish, and taking a volume of the Manual from a neighbouring table, leant her arm upon it as though she were Hope and that her Anchor.

    Barnaby Rudge Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 1892

  • As Mrs Varden distinctly heard, and was intended to hear, all that Miggs said, and as these words appeared to convey in metaphorical terms a presage or foreboding that she would at some early period droop beneath her trials and take an easy flight towards the stars, she immediately began to languish, and taking a volume of the Manual from a neighbouring table, leant her arm upon it as though she were Hope and that her

    Barnaby Rudge: a tale of the Riots of 'eighty Charles Dickens 1841

  • As Mrs. Varden distinctly heard, and was intended to hear, all that Miggs said, and as these words appeared to convey in metaphorical terms a presage or foreboding that she would at some early period droop beneath her trials and take an easy flight towards the stars, she immediately began to languish, and taking a volume of the Manual from a neighbouring table, leant her arm upon it as though she were Hope and that her Anchor.

    Barnaby Rudge 1840

  • This funeral rite was a kind of presage of, or prelude to, his death approaching.

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume V (Matthew to John) 1721

  • I wish,” she added, with that love of evil presage which is common in the lower ranks,

    Saint Ronan's Well 2008

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