foreknowledge

English

Etymology

From fore- +‎ knowledge.

Pronunciation

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Noun

foreknowledge (usually uncountable, plural foreknowledges)

1. Knowing beforehand; foresight, precognition, prescience.
   • 1684, John Bunyan, A Holy Life, the Beauty of Christianity: Or, An Exhortation to Christians to be Holy, London: […] B. W. for Benj[amin] Alsop, […], →OCLC, page 3:

     [H]e [Paul] laboureth to comfort Timothy vvith the remembrance of the ſtedfaſtneſs of Gods eternal decree of Election, becauſe grounded on his foreknowledge; […]

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 125:

     The mule knows the hidden pitfalls of the morass; the swallow feels the storm ere it comes upon the air, and wings to the quiet shelter of its nest—they foresee their dangers, and avoid them; while we blindly rush forward into the depths of the pit and the fury of the tempest; for we know not what evils await us. No kind foreknowledge gives us even the choice of avoidance.

   • 2021, Megan Nolan, Acts of Desperation‎, Random House, →ISBN:

     But two bottles would alarm and confuse him, would lead to a conversation, so I smashed it merrily into a skip, buzzed and lit with the comforting foreknowledge of the second one on its way.

Related terms

• foreknow

Translations

knowing beforehand

Bulgarian: предвиждане (bg) n (predviždane) Dutch: voorkennis (nl) f Finnish: ennakkotieto German: Voraussicht (de) f, Vorauswissen n, Vorwissen n Greek: Ancient: πρόγνωσις f (prógnōsis) Greenlandic: siumut ilisimassuseq Turkish: önbilgi (tr) Woiwurrung: ngargoonin twarn