Prescience

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈpɹɛsɪ.əns/

Definitions

1. Knowledge of or ability to foresee future events before they occur
2. The ability to anticipate future occurrences through instinct or insight demonstrates a unique understanding of events before they transpire
3. The state of having insight or awareness about events before they happen

Etymology: Prescience is built from two Latin parts: "prae", meaning "before", and "scientia", meaning "knowledge", the same root that gives English "science" and "conscience". Put together, the Latin "praescientia" meant knowing something ahead of time, and that literal sense of foreknowledge is still what the English word carries. The word reached English through Middle English from Old French "prescience", which took the Latin form over largely unchanged. That route is typical of many formal Latin-derived words, which arrived through French during the medieval period and were then adjusted to English spelling and sound. The pairing with "science" is worth noticing. Both words share the idea of knowing, but "science" came to mean systematic knowledge of the natural world, while "prescience" kept the older, more personal sense of seeing what has not yet occurred.

Synonyms: foresight, foreknowledge, anticipation

Antonyms: ignorance, unawareness, inattention