[f. FUTURE + -ITY.]
1. The quality, state, or fact of being future; = FUTURITION 2. rare.
1637. Bastwick, Litany, I. 11. The hope of my blessednes is not here: the futurity of which doth no way mitigate my comfort.
1660. Glanvill, Sceps. Sci., viii. 74. The bare Possibilities, which never commence into a Futurity.
1864. Burton, Scot Abr., II. i. 56. Towards the conclusion of his third volume there is an announcement of a rather menacing tendency, but containing the comforting elements of futurity and uncertainty.
2. Future time; the future; a future space of time.
1604. Shaks., Oth., III. iv. 116.
That nor my Seruice past, nor present Sorrowes, | |
Nor purposd merit in futurity, | |
Can ransome me into his loue againe. |
1664. Power, Experimental Philosophy, I. 60. A white Spot [in a Yolk], with small white threads, (which in futurity proves the Heart with its Veins and arteries) but at present both its motion and circulation is undiscernable to the bare eye.
1741. Richardson, Pamela (1824), I. 159. Your condescensions and kindness shall, if possible, embolden me to look up to you without that sweet terror, that must confound poor bashful maidens, on such an occasion, when they are surrendered up to a more doubtful happiness, and to half-strange men, whose good faith, and good usage of them, must be less experienced, and is all involved in the dark bosom of futurity, and only to be proved by the event.
1792. S. Rogers, The Pleasures of Memory, II. 58.
And oer Futuritys blank page diffuse | |
The full reflection of their vivid hues. |
1819. Scott, Leg. Montrose, i. These events were still in the womb of futurity.
1841. F. Myers, Cath. Th., IV. § 33. 346. His vision was often at the same time so limited as not to foresee the particular events and personages of a distant futurity.
1876. Mozley, Univ. Serm., iii. (1877), 64. There is a deceptive future life, which is only a man throwing forward into the darkness of futurity an image of himself here.
3. What is future.
a. What will exist or happen in the future; future events as a whole. Also † those that will live in the future, posterity (obs. rare).
1664. Power, Experimental Philosophy, Preface, 17. We cannot but conclude such Prognosticks to be within the circle of possibilities, and perhaps not out of the reach of futurity to exhibit.
1713. Berkeley, Guardian, No. 35, 21 April, ¶ 5. I saw a wretch racked, at the same time, with a painful remembrance of past miscarriages, a distaste of the present objects that solicit his senses, and a secret dread of futurity.
1738. Swift, Lett., 24 Aug. I will contrive some way to be known to futurity, that [etc.].
1754. Sherlock, Disc. (1759), I. i. 19. We must have no Share or Lot in the Glories of Futurity.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & Fall, III. 60. An Egyptian monk, who possessed the knowledge of futurity.
1884. J. S. C. Abbott, Napoleon (1855), I. xxiv. 389. The caprices of fate and the uncertainty of futurity.
b. pl. Future events.
1651. Biggs, New Disp., ¶ 304. In the futurities of our performances.
1694. J. Howe, in H. Rogers, Life, x. (1863), 285. Such sad futurities God, in mercy to us, hides from us, that we may not afflict ourselves before he afflicts us.
a. 1703. Burkitt, On. N. T., Luke xxi. 7. What an itching curiosity there is in the best of men, to know futurities.
1779. Franklin, Lett., Wks. 1889, VI. 420. I must one of these days go back to see him but futurities are uncertain.
1850. Mrs. Browning, Poems, II. 177. O centuries That roll, in vision, your futurities My future grave athwart.
a. 1859. De Quincey, Posthum. Wks. (1891), I. 85, note. The reader whose scholarship is still amongst his futurities.
c. State or condition in the future. Also, existence after death.
1741. C. Middleton, Cicero, I. iii. 166. There is not one of us who exerts himself with praise and virtue in the dangers of the Republic, but is induced to it by the expectation of a futurity.
1748. Hartley, Observations on Man, I. iii. 356. Rules which teach Mankind how to secure a happy Futurity.
1775. Johnson, Tax. no Tyr., in Boswell, an. 1775. This futurity of Whiggism.
1836. Hor. Smith, The Tin Trumpet (1876), 173. FuturityWhat we are to be, determined by what we have been.
1860. Mill, Repr. Govt. (1865), 39/1. The practical dangers to which the futurity of representative governments will be exposed.