Visioneer

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An individual who creatively anticipates future developments and transforms ideas into visions
2. A person who conceives innovative ideas about what might happen ahead
3. An individual with the ability to foresee and craft concepts about the future

Etymology: "Visioneer" was coined in the 1950s by the American industrialist Robert Herbst, not by the professional writers and scholars who usually invent English terms. Herbst used it in the 1950s to describe a person who combined imaginative foresight with the practical skill to bring a plan into being, and he later wrote a book about visioneering as a discipline. The word was made from "vision" and the "-eer" ending, which comes through Old French from Latin and is seen in words like "engineer" and "pioneer," meaning someone who works with or handles a particular thing. The notable point is that the word's sense has drifted. Herbst's coinage carried the idea of turning vision into concrete results, so a visioneer was meant to be a doer as much as a dreamer. In everyday use the word now tends to stress only the imaginative forecasting part, which is the sense the definition here captures.

Synonyms: dreamer, futurist, idealist, innovator, visionary