Anticipating

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The process of eagerly awaiting an expected event
2. The action of predicting and preparing for a forthcoming occurrence
3. Looking forward to something with expectation and readiness

Etymology: The word is the present participle of "anticipate", so its real story is that of the verb. Latin "anticipāre" was built from "ante" ("before") and "capere" ("to take"), so it literally meant "to take before," in the sense of seizing or getting to something ahead of others. That physical sense of forestalling someone is still visible in the older English uses, where to anticipate a rival was to act first and beat them to a goal. The shift from grabbing something early to expecting it in advance happened gradually. Once you have taken hold of an event before it arrives, you have in effect dealt with it in your mind ahead of time, and the meaning moved from acting first to foreseeing and preparing. The "capable" family of words shares the same Latin root "capere", so this verb is a close relative of words about holding and grasping.

Synonyms: expecting, awaiting, foreseeing, predicting

Antonyms: dismissing, ignoring, overlooking