prescience
Knowledge of events before they take place.
Noun
- Knowledge of events before they take place.
- God's certain prescience of the volitions of moral agents - 1754, Jonathan Edwards, An Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions Respecting that Freedom of the Will which is supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency:
- O thou, who thus the eye hast veil'd, The book of fate so slowly given, I thank thee, that thou hast conceal'd From man the prescience of heaven. - 1815, Lydia Sigourney, Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse, On a Sleeping...
Synonyms: precognition foresight foreknowledge clairvoyance premonition divination prophecy psychicness
Coordinate Terms: foretelling
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(especially) Such knowledge that is supernatural or paranormal in nature, including the prediction of things that nobody could have known by the ordinary senses.
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(sometimes) Such knowledge that comes from wise and thorough forethought (for example, careful planning).
- Near-synonym: forethought
- With prescience, the Barlows designed them to withstand a third more weight than they would be expected to bear in normal conditions - future proofing the bridge for the weight of trains we see using it today. - 2020...
Synonyms: foresight forethought
Origin
Inherited from Middle English prescience, from Old French prescience, from Latin praescientia.