prognosticate

From Medieval Latin prognosticare; see prognostic for more.

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• IPA^(key): /pɹɒɡˈnɒstɪkeɪt/

prognosticate (third-person singular simple present prognosticates, present participle prognosticating, simple past and past participle prognosticated)

1. (transitive) To predict or forecast, especially through the application of skill.

   Synonyms: foretell, prophesy

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

   • 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:

     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.'

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

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

   • 1915 – Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out ch. 2

     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.

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

     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.

2. (transitive) To presage, betoken.

   Synonyms: foretoken, foreshadow, portend

   The bluebells may prognosticate an early spring this year.

prognosticate

1. inflection of prognosticare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

prognosticate f pl

1. feminine plural of prognosticato