Forethought

//ˈfɔː(ɹ)θɔːt// adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Thinking beforehand or in advance, planning; prior or previous consideration. countable, uncountable

    "Near-synonym: foresight"

  2. 2
    judiciousness in avoiding harm or danger wordnet
  3. 3
    Anticipation. countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    planning or plotting in advance of acting wordnet
  5. 5
    Provident care; prudence. countable, uncountable
Verb
  1. 1
    simple past and past participle of forethink form-of, participle, past
Adjective
  1. 1
    Thought of, or planned, beforehand. not-comparable

    "c. 1613–1621, Francis Bacon, The judicial charge upon the commission of Oyer and Terminer held for the verge of the Court Forethought malice."

Synonyms

All synonyms
cautionforesightpremeditationpremeditationaforethoughtaforethought

Example

More examples

"I don't think Tom did that with any forethought."

Etymology

From Middle English forethouht, forethoght, from Old English *foreþōht (“forethought”); equivalent to fore- + thought. See also forethink.

Related phrases

malice ofthink firstthinking ahead

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.