noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Realization or understanding of the significance and nature of events after they have occurred. countable, uncountable

   "You know what they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty."

2. 2
   understanding the nature of an event after it has happened wordnet
3. 3
   The rear sight of a firearm. countable, rare, uncountable

   "Holonym: iron sights"

Synonyms

All synonyms

afterviewbacksightcommitment to memoryexercise of memoryflashbacklearning by heart

Antonyms

All antonyms

foresight

Example

More examples

"With 20/20 hindsight, he could tell why they lost the game."

Etymology

From hind + sight, 19th c. Compare Latinate retrospect.

Related phrases

hindsight is 20/20in hindsighttwenty-twenty hindsight

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