presentiment
/prɪˈzɛn.tɪ.mənt//prɪˈzɛn.tɪ.mənt/
presentiment noun: a premonition; a feeling that something, often of undesirable nature, is going to happen.
Noun
presentiment (plural presentiments)
- A premonition; a feeling that something, often of undesirable nature, is going to happen.
- A man, my good Sir, has seldom an offer of kindness to make to a woman, but she has a presentiment of it some moments before.1768, Mr. Yorick [pseudonym; Laurence Sterne], A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, […], →OCLC
- A thousand alarming presentiments of evil to her beloved Catherine from this terrific separation must oppress her heart with sadness, and drown her in tears for the last day or two of their being together; […]1803 (date written), [Jane Austen], chapter II, in Northanger Abbey; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. […], volume I, London: John Murray, […], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818)...
- Synonyms:
- boding, foreboding, forefeeling, premonition
presentiment meaning in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Tagalog
presentiment in Tamil
- நிகழ்வு முன்னுணர்வு, வருவதுணர்வு
presentiment in Malayalam
- നേരിയ പ്രതീക്ഷ, മുൻകൂട്ടിക്കാണുന്ന നിരാശ, മുന്നറിവ്
presentiment in Kannada
- ಪೂರ್ವಶಂಕೆ, ಅಸ್ಪಷ್ಟ ನಿರೀಕ್ಷೆ, ಮುನ್ನರಿವು, ಮುನ್ನಳಕು
presentiment in Tagalog
- a premonition; a feeling that something, often of undesirable nature, is going to happen
- kutob
Examples of presentiment in a sentence
- They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of their ugliest thoughts, as they do of their deformed children.1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 13, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848...
- I have a horrible presentiment that something of the kind may happen to me.1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter XVIII, in The Picture of Dorian Gray:
- “No,” replied the girl, “it would not be strange, of course; but for some inexplicable reason I have one of those foolish feminine presentiments that all is not right with Mr.1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 106:
- And yet Constantin Demiris still felt that vague sense of unease, a presentiment of trouble.1973, Sidney Sheldon, The Other Side of Midnight:
Synonyms of presentiment
Forms of presentiment
| plural | presentiments |
|---|
Origin of presentiment
From French pressentiment, from Middle French, equivalent to pre- + sentiment.
Words formed from presentiment
Questions about presentiment
- What does presentiment mean?
- Presentiment means a premonition; a feeling that something, often of undesirable nature, is going to happen.
- What is presentiment in Tamil?
- Presentiment in Tamil is நிகழ்வு முன்னுணர்வு, வருவதுணர்வு. See Presentiment meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use presentiment in a sentence?
- They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of their ugliest thoughts, as they do of their deformed children.
- What part of speech is presentiment?
- Presentiment is a noun.
- How do you pronounce presentiment?
- Presentiment is pronounced /prɪˈzɛn.tɪ.mənt/ (UK).
- What is the plural of presentiment?
- The plural of presentiment is presentiments.
Words near presentiment in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: presentiment (page history and authors); presentiment (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); presentiment (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); presentiment (Kannada Wiktionary) (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-presentiment.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-presentiment.wav.
Cite this entry: “presentiment.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/presentiment. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.