Adumbrations

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The process of giving subtle hints about future events occurs alongside the creation of unclear representations of ideas and concepts
2. It includes both the act of foreshadowing upcoming situations and the formation of vague ideas or outlines
3. The act of hinting at future occurrences is paired with the crafting of indistinct representations or summaries of various concepts

Etymology: Plato's cave gives this word its most vivid picture. In the allegory of the cave, a prisoner who has only ever seen shadows flickering on a wall believes they are reality, and the shadows are what the Latin "adumbratio" meant at root: a shade cast on something. The Latin word came from "adumbrare," which combined "ad-" ("towards") with "umbrare" ("to cast a shadow, to shade"), itself from "umbra," meaning shade, shadow or even ghost. The Latin sense stretched in several directions. "Adumbrare" could mean to shade a drawing with light and dark, to sketch an outline, or to copy and imitate, and "adumbratio" carried the sense of a sketch, a silhouette, or a pretence and semblance. The suffix "-ion" marks the word as a noun for a state or result, so the core idea is a faint outline or a shadowy partial likeness. That shadowy outline is exactly what the modern sense keeps. Something adumbrated is only partly shown, a sketch of what is coming or a rough shape of an idea, rather than the thing itself.

Synonyms: foreshadowings, outlines