[f. next vb.]
1. a. The action, habit, or faculty of forecasting; foresight of consequences and provision against them, forethought, prudence. Now rare.
a. 1541. Wyatt, Poet. Wks. (1861), 183.
| So that, forgot the wisdom and forecast, | |
| Which woe to realms, when that the King doth lack! | |
| Forgetting eke God’s majesty as fast, | |
| Yea and his own. |
1644. Qualres, Barnabas & B., 243. Give me a wise forecast, that the subtlety of the devil may not entrap me.
1754. Richardson, Grandison (1781), I. vii. 109. He has invention, forecast, and contrivance: but you see how those qualities are all employed.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res. (1858), 177. The doctrine, which Swift, with the keen forecast of genius, dimly anticipated, will stand revealed in clear light.
1838. Prescott, Ferd. & Is. (1846), III. xvi. 168. Her prophetic insight into the evils to result from her death,—evils, alas! which no forecast could avert.
b. A forecasting or anticipation; a conjectural estimate or account, based on present indications, of the course of events or state of things in the future, esp. with regard to the weather.
a. 1673. Caryl, in Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. cvi. 7. What were these fearful forecasts, these amazing bodements of an unavoidable (as they apprehended) ruin, but the overflowings of unbelief, or distrust in God.
1822. Lamb, Elia, Ser. II. Confess. Drunkard. Now, the first feeling which besets me, after stretching out the hours of recumbence to their last possible extent, is a forecast of the wearisome day that lies before me, with a secret wish that I could have lain on still, or never awaked.
1862. Times, 12 April. Too little critical attention has been given to the ‘wet or dry’ part of our forecasts.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, i. 10–1. Is not the shield of Achilles, like Dante’s pavement of the Purgatorial staircase, a forecast of the future?
† 2. a. Design, purpose, aim. b. A plan, scheme, or device made beforehand. Obs.
a. 1549. Coverdale, etc., Erasm. Par. Jas. iv. 1–6. It was lawfull for them to set theyr forcastes vpon muckryng vp of riches.
c. 1686–8. Invinc. Pride Wom., in Roxb. Ball. (1890), VII. 21.
| It is her forecast to contrive to rise about the hour of Noon, | |
| And if she’s trimm’d and rigg’d by five, why this I count is very soon. |
b. 1535. Coverdale, Wisd. ix. 14. For the thoughtes of mortall men are miserable, & oure forecastes are but vncertayne.
1674. N. Fairfax, A Treatise of the Bulk and Selvedge of the World, 162. That forecast or decree by the power of which the world was, was nothing but God forecasting or decreeing.
1754. Richardson, Grandison (ed. 7), VIII. 172. What an admirable forecast in my dearest life! A repast so elegant, prepared (as your Murray informs me) by your personal direction, to attend their hour.
† 3. A projection. Obs.
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong, Projects de maisons, when houses haue a little forecast or wall before the gate.
