Word.ws English Dictionary

foreshew

foreshew is the obsolete spelling of foreshow.

Meaning of foreshow

Verb

foreshow (third-person singular simple present foreshows, present participle foreshowing, simple past foreshowed, past participle foreshown)

  1. (archaic, transitive) To show in advance; to foretell, predict.
    • Amid his senses' giddy wheel, / Did he not desperate impulse feel, / Headlong to plunge himself below, / And meet the worst his fears foreshow?— […]1810, Walter Scott, “Canto II. The Island.”, in The Lady of the Lake; […], Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for John Ballantyne and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and William...
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To foreshadow or prefigure.
    • But if the rays break forth out of the middle, or dispersed, and its exterior body, or the out parts of it, be covered with clouds, it foreshows great tempests both of wind and rain.1841, Francis Bacon, Basil Montagu, The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England

See all 3 meanings of foreshow

Forms of foreshew

third-person singular presentforeshews
present participleforeshewing
pastforeshewed
past participleforeshewn

Origin of foreshew

From fore- + shew.

Words formed from foreshew

Questions about foreshew

What is foreshew the obsolete spelling of?
Foreshew is the obsolete spelling of foreshow.

Words near foreshew in the dictionary

  1. foreshank
  2. foreshanks
  3. foreshape
  4. foresheet
  5. foresheets
  6. foreshew
  7. foreshewed
  8. foreshewer
  9. foreshewers
  10. foreshewing
  11. foreshewn

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: foreshew (page history and authors); foreshow (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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