Word.ws English Dictionary

foresaw

/fɔɹˈsɔ/

foresaw is the simple past of foresee.

Meaning of foresee

Verb

foresee (third-person singular simple present foresees, present participle foreseeing, simple past foresaw, past participle foreseen)

  1. To perceive (a situation or event) in advance.
    • A prudent man foreſeeth the euill, and hideth himſelfe: but the ſimple paſſe on, and are puniſhed.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 22:3
  2. (obsolete) To provide.
    • Great shoals of people, which go on to populate, without foreseeing means of life.1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Vicissitude of Things”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC

Words that rhyme with foresaw

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about foresaw

What is foresaw the simple past of?
Foresaw is the simple past of foresee.
How do you pronounce foresaw?
Foresaw is pronounced /fɔɹˈsɔ/ (US).

Words near foresaw in the dictionary

  1. foresaken
  2. foresave
  3. foresaved
  4. foresaves
  5. foresaving
  6. foresaw
  7. foresay
  8. foresaying
  9. foresays
  10. forescan
  11. forescanned

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: foresaw (page history and authors); foresee (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-foresaw.ogg.

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