- prospect
- prospect, outlook, anticipation, foretaste are comparable when they mean an advance realization of something to come, especially of something foreseen or expected. Prospect and outlook both imply a conjuring up of a picture or mental vision of what the future, usually the near future, holds in store.Prospect is chiefly applied to particular events or situations, especially to those of interest to one as an individual and evocative of an emotional response{
the prospect of a quick, easy conquest of Greece . . . proved too big a temptation for the strutting Fascist Caesar to resist— Shirer
}{Coverly felt a dim rumble of homosexual lust.... Then the lash of his conscience crashed down ... at the prospect of joining this pale-eyed company— Cheever
}{he had just received a box of new books . . . and had preferred the prospect of a quiet Sunday at home— Wharton
}Outlook suggests an attempt to forecast the future from the point of view of an intellectual (as an economist or a philosopher) or from that of a practical man (as a politician or businessman) who is concerned not only with immediate but remote possibilities, and who demands accuracy in detail and soundness in conclusions{the outlook for business has been declared favorable
}{the outlook, domestic and international, was still what those who think in terms of color call black— Rose Macaulay
}{in Pennsylvania the outlook is equally gloomy. Today the state has a surplus. But . . . that surplus will evaporate soon— Armbrister
}Anticipation usually implies a prospect or outlook, but in addition it involves the implication of advance suffering or enjoyment of what is envisioned{Lord Beaconsfield once said that the worst evil one has to endure is the anticipation of the calamities that do not happen— Benson
}{the young Bishop lay down in Benito's deep feather bed, thinking how different was this night from his anticipation of it— Cather
}Foretaste also implies advance experience or prior enjoyment or suffering, but it does not necessarily connote, as does anticipation, a mental as distinguished from an actual experience. It implies sufficient experience to give one a hint of what is to come, but the experience, or taste, may be actual enjoyment or suffering or a fleeting but poignant anticipation of it{for whatever wrong she had done, she would pay through a thousand tortured days. Already the foretaste of them was upon her— Hervey
}{giving me amid the fretful dwellings of mankind a fore taste ... of the calm that Nature breathes among the hills and groves— Wordsworth
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
