prognosticate

present singular third person prognosticates · participle present prognosticating · participle past prognosticated · past prognosticated

1. transitiveTo predict or forecast, especially through the application of skill.

   Examining the tea-leaves, she prognosticated dark days ahead.

   4 more examples

   But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive, And constant stars in them I read such art As 'Truth and beauty shall together thrive, If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert'; Or else of thee this I prognosticate: 'Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.'

   1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 14”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC

   ...to-morrow I intend lengthening the night till afternoon. I prognosticate for myself an obstinate cold, at least.

   1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], Wuthering Heights: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC

   All old people and many sick people were drawn, were it only for a foot or two, into the open air, and prognosticated pleasant things about the course of the world.

   1915 – Virginia Woolf, Voyage Out ch. 2

   The most striking piece of interpretation of this sort occurred in the first century of the Christian era, in consequence of Paul's mission to the Gentiles: Paul and the Church Fathers reinterpreted the entire Jewish tradition as a succession of figures prognosticating the appearance of Christ, and assigned the Roman Empire its proper place in the divine plan of salvation.

   1946, Erich Auerbach, “Odysseus' Scar”, in Partisan Review, transl., Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, page 16

   Synonyms: foretell, prophesy

2. transitiveTo presage, betoken.

   The bluebells may prognosticate an early spring this year.

   Synonyms: foretoken, foreshadow, portend