foreshadow
/fɔːˈʃædəʊ/ verb, noun
Forms foreshadows foreshadowing foreshadowed foreshadowest foreshadowedst foreshadoweth
- verb To suggest (someone or something) in advance; to prefigure, to presage.
- verb (rare) Of a person: to have an intuition or premonition about (something); to forebode.
- noun A suggestion of something in advance; a harbinger, a portent.
Synonyms
foretouch foreshadowing omen augury auspice harbinger portent presage prognostic bode portend auspicate prognosticate betoken augur foretell prefigure forecast predict
Etymology
The verb is derived from fore- (prefix meaning ‘before with respect to time, earlier’) + shadow (“to shade, cloud, or darken”, verb).
The noun is derived from fore- + shadow (“faint and imperfect representation”, noun), probably modelled after the verb which is attested earlier.
Webster’s 1913
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “foreshadow”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details