prescience

• præscience (archaic)

Inherited from Middle English prescience, from Old French prescience, from Latin praescientia.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɛsɪ.əns/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɛʃəns/, /ˈpɹɛsi.əns/, /ˈpɹɛʃiəns/, (sometimes) /ˈpɹi-/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛsɪəns

prescience (usually uncountable, plural presciences)

1. Knowledge of events before they take place; foresight; foreknowledge. [from 14th c.]
   • 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.

• (the ability to foresee the future): precognition

prescience f (plural presciences)

1. prescience

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