Word.ws English Dictionary

precognize

precognize verb: to display or have precognition; to have (paranormal) knowledge of a future event before it occurs.

Verb

precognize (third-person singular simple present precognizes, present participle precognizing, simple past and past participle precognized)

  1. To display or have precognition; to have (paranormal) knowledge of a future event before it occurs.
    • One fact of importance is that so far as the evidence goes we do not precognize the whole of our future. Why is this? It may have the same sort of explanation as the fact that we do not remember the whole of our past.1961, K. W. Rankin, Choice and Chance, a Libertarian Analysis
    • ... misuse could hardly be the result of precognizing that a certain event would occur (e.g. if I unwittingly drink poison just after precognizing the hour of my death, I shall not regard the potion as ineffective when its true nature is revealed to me.1999, Michael Tooley, Time and Causation, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, page 88

Examples of precognize in a sentence

  • He couldn't precognize, but he provided one of the main tools in the theory of precognition.2015, Richard Grossinger, Lindy Hough, Io Anthology, North Atlantic Books, →ISBN, page 378:
  • Lilil hoped an hour before the drawing was close enough to the event to precognize the numbers.2007, Amia Kettier, Awakening, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 46:

Forms of precognize

third-person singular presentprecognizes
present participleprecognizing
past participleprecognized
pastprecognized

Origin of precognize

From pre- + cognize or back-formed from precognizance, precognition.

Questions about precognize

What does precognize mean?
Precognize means to display or have precognition; to have (paranormal) knowledge of a future event before it occurs.
How do you use precognize in a sentence?
He couldn't precognize, but he provided one of the main tools in the theory of precognition.
What part of speech is precognize?
Precognize is a verb.
What is the past tense of precognize?
The past tense of precognize is precognized.

Words near precognize in the dictionary

  1. precognitively
  2. precognitives
  3. precognizable
  4. precognizance
  5. precognizant
  6. precognize
  7. precognized
  8. precognizes
  9. precognizing
  10. precognosce
  11. precognosced

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: precognize (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.

Last updated:

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