Expectancy

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ɪkˈspɛkt(ə)nsi/

Definitions

1. The phenomenon of awaiting a future possibility or result, often linked with hope or desire for what is to come is a significant emotional state
2. The degree to which a future outcome is considered probable or awaited ; the average time a person or organism is projected to live based on statistical data
3. A measure of how probable an event is likely to occur over time ; a calculated estimate of remaining lifespan derived from demographic information

Etymology: Expectancy is one of those words whose ancestry is a little ambiguous: it can be built from "expectant" plus the suffix "-cy", or from the verb "expect" plus "-ancy", and both routes lead to the same Latin source. The verb "expect" comes from Latin "expectare", meaning to look out for or wait for, built from "ex-" (out) and "spectare" (to look), the same root that gives "spectator" and "spectacle." So at its heart the word is about looking outward toward what is coming. The "-ancy" ending is the familiar English suffix that turns an action or state into a noun, as in "vacancy" or "constancy," and it is what turns "expect" into a word for the state of expecting. The "-cy" route works the same way, adding a noun-forming ending to "expectant," the adjective for someone who is waiting. The second meaning, the average lifespan projected from statistics, is a later extension of the same sense. Once something is expected with some confidence, it can be measured in numbers, and life expectancy treats a person's remaining years as a quantity that can be predicted from population data.

Synonyms: anticipation, expectation, hope

Antonyms: disappointment, doubt