prescient

Etymology

From praesciēns (“foreknowing; foretelling, predicting”), present participle of) Latin praesciō (“to foreknow”), from prae- (prefix meaning ‘before; in front’) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *preh₂- (“before; in front”)) + sciō (“to know, understand; to have knowledge of”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *skey- (“to dissect; to split”)). The word is cognate with Middle French prescient (modern French prescient (“prescient”)), Italian presciente (“prescient”).

adj

1. Exhibiting or possessing prescience: having knowledge of, or seemingly able to correctly predict, events before they take place.
   And if the præſcient Muſes guide my Lay, / Or, future Secrets, Phœbus can diſplay, / The Day ſhall ſhine diſtinguiſh'd from the reſt, / That Anna dignify'd, and Hymen bleſt; […] 1733–1734, Stephen Duck, A Poem on the Marriage of His Serene Highness the Prince of Orange with Ann Princess-royal of Great Britain.[…], London: Printed for Weaver Bickerton[…], →OCLC, page 7
   Mean time the king, aſtoniſh'd at the ſign, / Haſtes to conſult his præſcient ſire divine. 1753, Virgil, “Virgil’s Æneid. The Seventh Book.”, in Christopher Pitt, transl., edited by Joseph Warton], The Works of Virgil, in Latin and English.[…], volume III, London: Printed for R[obert] Dodsley[…], →OCLC, lines 103–104, page 283
   Benignant Heaven, præscient and kind, / Made man for toil, and left sweet Sleep behind, / To nerve the arm which labour had unstrung— […] [1812], William Grisenthwaite, Sleep, a Poem in Two Books, with Other Miscellaneous Poems,[…], Lynn: Printed for the author, by W. G. Whittingham, and sold by R. Baldwin,[…], →OCLC, book I, lines 77–79, page 5
   Members opposite seem to be prescient; they seem to know what I am going to say before I have said it. 24 August 1960, Roy Emile Jack, “Business of the House—Urgency”, in Parliamentary Debates (Hansard): Fourth Session, Thirty-second Parliament: House of Representatives, volume 323, Wellington: R. E. Owen, government printer, →OCLC, page 1740
   [Neil] Warnock described City as the best team in Europe in the build-up to this match and joked that his players had been preparing for the game – and City's inevitable dominance – by training without a ball. It proved to be a prescient quip, as the home side had to toil for long periods, struggling to lay a glove on their stylish opponents. 28 January 2018, Dafydd Pritchard, “Cardiff City 1 – 1 Manchester City”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 2018-03-17