Also for-. [OE. foreþęnc(e)an, f. FORE- pref. + þęnc(e)an to THINK.]
† 1. trans. To consider or think out beforehand, contrive, plan. Obs.
c. 897. K. Ælfred, Gregory’s Past., xv. § 5. 95. Se lareow sceal … foreðencean … ðæt he nane ðinga ðæt ryht to suiðe & to unȝemetlice & to unaberendlice ne bodiȝe.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 844 (Cott.).
| Bot our lauerd had ranscond him [man], | |
| On suilk a wis, als he for-thoght. |
c. 1430. Pilgr. Lyf Manhode, II. civ. (1869), 114. Ther is no time no thing wel doon ne wel seid ne ariht ordeyned but it be forthouht bi my wit.
1513. More, in Grafton, Chron. (1568), II. 759. He long time in king Edwardes life, forethought to be king.
1587. Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 1394/1. If he … did now forethink the treason.
1715. Rowe, Lady Jane Gray, III.
| Still with regard to that my brain forethought, | |
| And fashion’d ev’ry action of my life. |
absol. 1634. Ford, P. Warbeck, IV. iv. K. Hen. You are men know how to do, not to forethink.
2. To think of or contemplate beforehand; to anticipate in the mind, to presage (evil). Now rare.
1547–64. Bauldwin, Mor. Philos. (Palfr.), 106. Humility and gentlenesse will rather of a friend hope the best, than fore-think the worst.
1627. P. Fletcher, Locusts, IV. xxxvi.
| Oh how my dauncing heart leapes in my breast | |
| But to fore-thinke that noble tragedie! | |
| I thirst, I long for that blood-royall feast. |
1724. R. Welton, 28 Disc., 20. It [is] very unaccountable for a man so little to forethink what will shortly befall him.
1890. Illustr. Lond. News, 4 Oct., 426/2. Each forethinks, as the full cups circle, how well he may take his next meal in Paradise.
† 3. intr. To think beforehand of. Obs.
1587. Greene, Euphues his Censure, Wks. (Grosart), VI. 248. Age and time two things, Sonnes that men may forethinke of, but not preuent.
1657. J. Smith, Myst. Rhet., 62–3. Why covetest thou the fruit, and considerest not the height of the tree whereon it growes? thou dost not forethink of the difficulty in climbing, nor danger in reaching, whereby it comes to passe, that while thou endevourest to climb to the top, thou fallest with the bough which thou embracest.
1701. Norris, Ideal World, I. ii. 27. For as he could not make it without forethinking of it, so neither could he think of it without having something to terminate that Thought, which must be the Nature or Essence of the thing that was to be made.
Hence Forethinking vbl. sb., forethought; also, † a contrivance, plot. Forethinking ppl. a. Also Forethinker, one who forethinks.
1632. [I. L.], Women’s Rights, 352. Felonies … forethinkings, and all that is against the Kings peace.
1709. Strype, Ann. Ref., I. xxxi. 360. Concerning which, conscientious and fore-thinking Men had very Melancholy Thoughts, those Places being now very empty of Learned Men, and so like to be.
1846. Grote, Greece, I. iii. I. 102. Promêtheus and Epimêtheus (the fore-thinker and the after-thinker) are characters stamped at the same mint, and by the same effort, the express constrast and antithesis of each other.
1874. M. Collins, Frances, I. 182.
| Hope is the fire that the Forethinker stole; | |
| Hope is the breath of man’s immortal soul. |
