- foretell
- foretell, predict, forecast, prophesy, prognosticate, augur, presage, portend, forebode are comparable when meaning to tell something before it happens through special knowledge or occult power. Foretell and predict are frequently interchangeable, but foretell stresses the announcement of coming events and does not, apart from a context, indicate the nature of the agent's power or the source of his information{
some sorcerer . . . had foretold, dying, that none of all our blood should know the shadow from the substance— Tennyson
}{the marvelous exactness with which eclipses are foretold— Darrow
}Predict commonly implies inference from facts or accepted laws of nature; it often connotes scientific accuracy in foretelling{Mr. Brooke's conclusions were as difficult to predict as the weather— George Eliot
}{an astronomer predicts the return of a comet
}{Gamow predicted that the explanation of the sun's heat, light, and energy would be found to lie in thermonuclear reactions— Current Biog.
}Forecast may occasionally imply taking forethought of the future (as by anticipation, conjecture of possible eventualities, and provision for one's needs){a prudent builder should forecast how long the stuff is like to last— Swift
}More often it implies prediction, but it still retains the implication of anticipated eventualities{forecast the weather
}{since hurricanes have been forecast, losses in life and property have dwindled
}{when the votes began to be counted . . . the return of the Republicans was forecast— Paxson
}Prophesy either connotes inspired or mystic knowledge or implies great assurance in prediction{ancestral voices prophesying war—Coleridge
}{wrinkled benchers often talked of him approvingly, and prophesied his rise— Tennyson
}Prognosticate implies prediction based upon signs or symptoms{a skillful physician can prognosticate the course of most diseases
}{for the last three hundred years the relation of Church to State has been constantly undergoing change .... I am not concerned with prognosticating their future relations— T. S. Eliot
}Prognosticate and the following words also are comparable in the related sense of to betoken or foreshow future events or conditions{everything seems to prognosticate a hard winter— Cobbett
}Augur implies a divining or a foreshadowing of something pleasant or unpleasant often through interpretation of omens or signs{the morrow brought a very sober-looking morning . . . Catherine augured from it everything most favorable to her wishes— Austen
}Presage and portend more often imply foreshowing than foretelling, though both senses are found. Both also typically suggest occult power or an ability to interpret signs and omens as a basis for prediction, but presage may be used of neutral or of favorable as well as unfavorable prognostications, whereas portend regularly suggests a threat of evil or disaster{lands he could measure, terms and tides presage— Goldsmith
}{the yellow and vapory sunset . . . had presaged change— Hardy
}{some great misfortune to portend, no enemy can match a friend— Swift
}{his sign in the high heavens portended war— Kipling
}Forebode implies unfavorable prognostication based especially upon premonitions, presentiments, or dreams{oppressed by a foreboding of evil
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
