prescience

English

Alternative forms

• præscience (archaic)

Etymology

From French prescience, from Latin praescientia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɛsɪ.əns/

  • Audio (UK):

    (file)

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɛʃɨns/
• Rhymes: -ɛsɪəns

Noun

prescience (usually uncountable, plural presciences)

1. Knowledge of events before they take place; foresight; foreknowledge.
   • 1754, Jonathan Edwards, An Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions Respecting that Freedom of the Will which is supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency

     God's certain prescience of the volitions of moral agents

   • 1815, Lydia Sigourney, Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse, On a Sleeping Infant, page 198:

     O thou, who thus the eye hast veil'd,
     The book of fate so slowly given,
     I thank thee, that thou hast conceal'd
     From man the prescience of heaven.

   • 2020 September 23, Paul Bigland, “The tragic tale of the Tay Bridge disaster”, in Rail, page 83:

     With prescience, the Barlows designed them to withstand a third more weight than they would be expected to bear in normal conditions - future proofing the bridge for the weight of trains we see using it today.

Translations

Knowledge of events before they take place; foresight; foreknowledge

• Bulgarian: предвиждане (bg) n (predviždane), далновидност (bg) f (dalnovidnost)
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 先見之明／先见之明 (zin¹ gin³ zi¹ ming⁴)

• Danish: klarsyn n
• Finnish: etukäteistieto
• French: prescience (fr) f
• Galician: presciencia f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: preveggenza f
• Maori: matakite
• Norwegian: klarsyn n, framsyn
• Portuguese: presciência (pt) f
• Russian: предви́дение (ru) n (predvídenije)
• Spanish: presciencia (es) f

---

French

Noun

prescience f (plural presciences)

1. prescience

Further reading

• “prescience”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.