prescience
English
Alternative forms
- præscience (archaic)
Etymology
From French prescience, from Latin praescientia.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈpɹɛsɪ.əns/
Audio (Southern England) (file)
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈpɹɛʃɪns/
- Rhymes: -ɛsɪəns
Noun
prescience (usually uncountable, plural presciences)
- Knowledge of events before they take place; foresight; foreknowledge.
- 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:
- God's certain prescience of the volitions of moral agents
- 1815, Lydia Sigourney, Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse, On a Sleeping Infant, page 198:
- 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.
- 2020 September 23, Paul Bigland, “The tragic tale of the Tay Bridge disaster”, in Rail, page 83:
- 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.
Synonyms
- (the ability to foresee the future): precognition
Translations
Knowledge of events before they take place; foresight; foreknowledge
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French
Further reading
- “prescience”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
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