forego

English

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /fɔɹˈɡoʊ/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /fɔːˈɡəʊ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊ
• Homophone: forgo

Etymology 1

From Middle English forgan, from Old English foregān, equivalent to fore- +‎ go.

Verb

forego (third-person singular simple present foregoes, present participle foregoing, simple past forewent, past participle foregone)

1. To precede, to go before.
   • 1815, William Wordsworth, Methought I saw:

     pleasing remembrance of a thought foregone

Usage notes

• The sense to precede is usually found in the form of the participles foregone (especially in the phrase "a foregone conclusion") and foregoing (usually used either attributively, as in "the foregoing discussion", or substantively, as in "subject to the foregoing").

Synonyms

• antecede, come before; see also Thesaurus:precede

Derived terms

• foregoer

Translations

precede — see precede

Etymology 2

See forgo.

Verb

forego (third-person singular simple present foregoes, present participle foregoing, simple past forewent, past participle foregone)

1. (often proscribed) Alternative spelling of forgo; to abandon, to relinquish.
   • February 1762, T. Waller, “The White Witch of the Wood, or the Devil of Broxbon”, in The Beauties of all the Magazines Selected, for the Year 1762, volume I, page 34:

     […] for on no other terms does she desire a reconciliation, but will sooner forego all the hopes to which her birth entitles her, and get her bread by service, than ever yield to become the wife of the ——.

   • 2020 May 5, Disney foregoing dividend payments for half of the year‎^[1] (News), CNBC Television, archived from the original on 07 October 2022:

     CNBC's Julia Boorstin reports Disney will forego its dividend payments for half of the year.

   • 2024, NTSB, Highway Investigation Report, HIR-24-05, Rear-End Collision Between Combination Vehicle and Medium-Size Bus:

     A study funded by the FMCSA found that although several heavy-vehicle manufacturers have voluntarily made AEB “standard” on many new truck models, they also offer “deletion credits” to customers who choose to remove AEB, which provides customers financial incentive to forego the technology and which ultimately reduces voluntary adoption rates

   • 2026 March 23, Barry Petchesky, “ICE Agents Deployed To Nation’s Swamped Airports To Stand Around And Do Nothing”, in Defector‎^[2], archived from the original on 23 March 2026:

     Last week, TSA agents missed their first full paychecks. Some employees are still at work, with the promise of back pay when the shutdown ends. But others can't or won't forego paychecks.

Usage notes

• Many writers prefer the spelling forgo for this sense, on the grounds that it avoids ambiguity with forego "to precede", especially in aspects such as "forgoing"/"foregoing" and "forgone"/"foregone".

References

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin Eli Smith, editors (1895–1910), “forego”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “forego”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• goofer