envisage

present singular third person envisages · participle present envisaging · participle past envisaged · past envisaged

1. transitiveTo conceive or see something within one's mind; to imagine or envision.

   From the very dawn of existence the infant must envisage self, and body acting on self.

   1860, James McCosh, The Intuitions of the Mind Inductively Investigated

   4 more examples

   Traffic at Dover Marine has developed far beyond anything envisaged when the station was built. The layout has become rather cramped, and prodigies of organisation are performed annually by all concerned to save complete saturation.

   1959 October 28, T. W. E. Roche, “Traffic Working at Dover Marine Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 680

   The prototype Liner train vehicles on show at Marylebone were not of the ultimate pattern either, for their wagon platform length is 42½ft, whereas 62½ft as envisaged as standard.

   1964 April, G. Freeman Allen, “The BRB shows traders the Liner train prototypes”, in Modern Railways, page 262

   Cambridge-St Ives was another 1970 victim. Who would have envisaged that £200m would ever be spent on this rural branch to convert it into a guided busway?

   2020 April 8, Howard Johnston, “East-ended? When the ECML was at risk”, in Rail, page 69

   Obviously, Schmitt envisaged Nazi Germany as the Reich at the heart of the European great space, which he sought to shield from Anglo-American interference.

   2026 January 16, Brendan Simms, “Has a Nazi theorist’s vision of a world divided into ‘great spaces’ found a new advocate in Trump?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 16 Jan 2026