Foreshadow
noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A suggestion of something in advance; a harbinger, a portent. transitive
"At present it is only in local glimpses, and by significant fragments, picked often at wide-enough intervals from the original Volume, and carefully collated, that we can hope to impart some outline or foreshadow of this Doctrine."
- 1 To suggest (someone or something) in advance; to prefigure, to presage. transitive
"[T]he ceremonies commaunded in the lawe, did foreſhadowe Chriſt."
- 2 indicate, as with a sign or an omen wordnet
- 3 Of a person: to have an intuition or premonition about (something); to forebode. rare, transitive
"Another consequence that he had never foreshadowed, was the implication of an innocent man in his supposed murder."
Example
More examples"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change."
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.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.