Precognition
noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Knowledge of the future; understanding of something in advance, especially as a form of supernatural or extrasensory perception. countable, uncountable
- 2 knowledge of an event before it occurs wordnet
- 3 The practice of taking a factual statement from a witness before a trial. countable, uncountable
"‘But it seems there are some strong presumptuous proofs against you, and I came to warn you this day that a precognition is in progress, and that unless you are perfectly convinced, not only of your innocence, but of your ability to prove it, it will be the safest course for you to abscond, and let the trial go on without you.’"
Example
More examples"Precognition is the act of using spiritual-power to know things that will occur in the future."
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French precognition or its source, Latin praecognitio, from praecognōscō (“to know beforehand”). Doublet of Germanic-based foreknowledge and Greek-based prognosis. Equivalent to pre- + cognition.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.