Word.ws English Dictionary

expectance

expectance is the alternative form of expectancy.

Meaning of expectancy

Noun

expectancy (countable and uncountable, plural expectancies)

  1. Expectation or anticipation; the state of expecting something.
    • [T]he Dukes dissembled their feares, and dissolued their forces, and remained in expectancie what would ensue.1599, John Hayward, The First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henrie IIII. Extending to the end of the first yeare of his raigne, London: John Woolfe, page 39
  2. The state of being expected.
  3. Future interest as to possession or enjoyment
  4. expectation; expected value
  5. (obsolete) Something expected or awaited.
    • O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown! / The courtier’s, scholar’s, soldier’s, eye, tongue, sword, / Th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state […]c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...

Forms of expectance

pluralexpectances

Questions about expectance

What is expectance the alternative form of?
Expectance is the alternative form of expectancy.

Words near expectance in the dictionary

  1. expect
  2. expect the unexpected
  3. expectability
  4. expectable
  5. expectably
  6. expectance
  7. expectances
  8. expectancies
  9. expectancy
  10. expectant
  11. expectantly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: expectance (page history and authors); expectancy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “expectance.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/expectance. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.