presentiment

From French pressentiment, from Middle French, equivalent to pre- +‎ sentiment.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /prɪˈzɛn.tɪ.mənt/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• (US) IPA^(key): /prɪˈzɛn.tɪ.mənt/

presentiment (plural presentiments)

1. A premonition; a feeling that something, often of undesirable nature, is going to happen.
   • 1768, Mr. Yorick [pseudonym; Laurence Sterne], A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, […], →OCLC:

     A man, my good Sir, has seldom an offer of kindness to make to a woman, but she has a presentiment of it some moments before.

   • 1803 (date written), [Jane Austen], chapter II, in Northanger Abbey; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. […], volume I, London: John Murray, […], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818), →OCLC, page 13:

     A thousand alarming presentiments of evil to her beloved Catherine from this terrific separation must oppress her heart with sadness, and drown her in tears for the last day or two of their being together; […]

   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 13, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     Oh, those women! They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of their ugliest thoughts, as they do of their deformed children.

   • 1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter XVIII, in The Picture of Dorian Gray:

     This unfortunate accident has upset me. I have a horrible presentiment that something of the kind may happen to me.

   • 1943 November and December, Chas. S. Lake, “Some Continental Travel Experiences (1922-1939)—V”, in Railway Magazine, page 355:

     I had a presentiment that this would be my last journey to the Continent for many a long day to come; this, as events turned out, proved all too correct. [This was published posthumously, the author died on 19 November 1942.]

   • 1973, Sidney Sheldon, The Other Side of Midnight:

     Everything on the surface appeared to be just as it ought to be. And yet Constantin Demiris still felt that vague sense of unease, a presentiment of trouble.

• boding
• foreboding
• forefeeling
• premonition

Borrowed from French pressentiment.

presentiment n (plural presentimente)

1. presentiment