Previser

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who foresees or foretells what is going to happen before it occurs
2. Someone with the ability to anticipate future events and announce them in advance
3. One who predicts coming developments, often by means of insight or foreknowledge

Etymology: A person who foresees what is coming is a previser, a formation from two Latin parts: "prae", meaning "before", and "videre", meaning "to see". Together they make "praevidere", "to foresee", and the agent noun "praevisor" supplied the idea of someone who sees ahead. English seems to have received the term through French, which had its own verb "previser" with the same sense of foreseeing. The English noun most likely grew from that verb rather than being taken straight from Latin. The same Latin root sits behind "provide" and "provision", which first meant seeing something coming and preparing for it, and only later came to mean supplying goods.