future

plural futures

1. countableuncountableThe time ahead; those moments yet to be experienced.

   1 more example

   This solitary attitude stems in part from a deep sense of fatalism and futility, a profound social effect of the genophage that caused krogan numbers to dwindle to a relative handful. Not only are they angry that the entire galaxy seems out to get them, the krogan are also generally pessimistic about their race's chances of survival. The surviving krogan see no point to building for the future; there will be no future. The krogan live with an attitude of "kill, pillage, and be selfish, for tomorrow we die."

   2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Krogan: Culture Codex entry

   Synonyms: to-come

2. countableuncountableSomething that will happen in moments yet to come.
3. countableuncountableGoodness in what is yet to come. Something to look forward to.

   There is no future in dwelling on the past.

   1 more example

   Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.

   2013 August 3, “Revenge of the nerds”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847

4. countableuncountableThe likely prospects for or fate of someone or something in time to come.

   Again, it's unlikely they will return to traffic, but futures have been secured for four that will be heading to heritage railways [...].

   2020 May 20, John Crosse, “Soon to be gone... but never forgotten”, in Rail, page 63

5. countableuncountablegrammarVerb tense used to talk about events that will happen in the future; future tense.
6. alternativecountableuncountablebusinessAlternative form of futures.
7. countableuncountablecomputingAn object that retrieves the value of a promise.
8. countableuncountablehobbiesA minor-league prospect.

1. not comparableHaving to do with or occurring in the future.

   Future generations will either laugh or cry at our stupidity.

   2 more examples

   So this was my future home, I thought! Certainly it made a brave picture. I had seen similar ones fired-in on many a Heidelberg stein. Backed by towering hills,[…]a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.

   1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

   It[The study] also attempts to predict the future progression of AI as it relates to new inventions.

   2019 February 3, “UN Study: China, US, Japan Lead World AI Development”, in Voice of America, archived from the original on 07 Feb 2019

   Synonyms: unborn, coming, hereafter, toward