Foretide
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An early tide (tidal surge). figuratively, rare
"He and the other leaders directed the crowds into the mass meeting at St. James Baptist Church, which was swamped long before nightfall. The movement was becoming a tempest. A foretide of one event churned into the backwash of others […]"
- 2 A prior or previous period of time. rare
"Older farmers coming from the East in the foretide of settlement, shook their heads dubiously at the idea of cropping the same land year after year to the one crop, corn."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"He and the other leaders directed the crowds into the mass meeting at St. James Baptist Church, which was swamped long before nightfall. The movement was becoming a tempest. A foretide of one event churned into the backwash of others […]"
Etymology
From fore- + tide.
More for "foretide"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.