presage

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English presage,^[2][3] borrowed from Latin praesāgium (“a foreboding, forewarning, portent”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} and also, according to the OED and Hoad, borrowed from Middle French presage (“omen”), itself from the Latin noun.^{[7][8][9][10]} Hoad takes the 14th-century use directly from Latin and the later use chiefly from French.^[8] The French noun is recorded from 1378 or earlier.^[7] The Latin noun comes from praesāgiō (“to perceive beforehand, forebode”),^{[7][11][5][4]} from prae- (“before”) and sāgiō (“to perceive keenly”),^{[7][4][3][12]} while Barnhart and Etymonline put praesāgus (“foreboding, prophetic”), with sāgus (“prophetic”), between them.^[5][11] The Latin simple verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *sāg-,^[4][13] which is also behind seek and sagacious.^[13][9][3] Compare Spanish presagio and Italian presagio, the latter from 1374.^[7] The verb is borrowed from Middle French presager,^{[5][3][11][9]} recorded in French from 1539 as presagier;^[7] the OED instead forms it from the noun in English, probably after the French verb or the Latin one.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

An omen, a sign of what is to come: before 1393, in Gower's Confessio Amantis, He..seide how that was a presage.^[7][2][5] The verb, "to be an omen of", follows in 1562, in W. Bullein.^[7][3][5] Etymonline dates it to the 1560s.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The noun was rare at first: Gower has it once,^[14] and Hoad regards it as not current until the 16th century.^[8] It then spread from the sign to the act of reading signs: a prediction from 1560,^[7] and a feeling of what is coming from 1597, in Shakespeare's Richard II,^[7] which is now rare.^[7] In 1621 B. Jonson used it as a mass noun for prophetic significance, and this survives with an adjective, as in of evil presage.^[7][15] The verb moved along similar lines: from "to be a supernatural sign of" (1562) to "to foretell" (1569) and "to be a natural forerunner of" (1583).^[7] From 1594, in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2, it also meant "to have a foreboding of".^[7][11] Johnson (1755) glossed the noun as "prognostick; presension of futurity" and the verb as "to forebode; to foreknow; to foretell; to prophesy".^[16]

Timeline

• before 1393 – an omen, a sign of the future.^[7][2][5]
• 1560 – a prediction (obsolete by 1870).^[7]
• 1562 – verb, to be an omen of.^[7][3][5]
• 1569 – verb, to foretell.^[7]
• 1583 – verb, to be a natural forerunner of.^[7]
• 1594 – verb, to have a foreboding of.^[7]
• 1597 – a foreboding, in Shakespeare's Richard II.^[7]
• 1621 – as a mass noun, prophetic significance, in B. Jonson.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sign or warning of something about to happen; an omen or portent: The first frost was a presage of a hard winter.^[6][3][7]
2. A feeling of what is about to happen; a foreboding.^[6][3][7]
3. Prophetic significance, chiefly of something unwelcome: of evil presage.^[7][15]
4. (archaic) A forecast or prediction.^[6][7][15]

Verb

1. To be a sign or warning of; to foreshadow: The early thaw presaged a flood.^[6][3][7]
2. To foretell or predict: He presaged the fall of the ministry.^[6][7][15]
3. (rare) To make a prediction.^[6][7][15]
4. To have a presentiment of.^[6][15]

Word family

• presageful
• presager
• presagefully
• unpresaged
• unpresaging

Related words

• sagacious
• sagacity
• seek
• beseech

Usage notes

Johnson (1755) marked the second syllable in both the noun and the verb.^[16] The first edition of the OED (1908) gave /prɪˈseɪdʒ/ for the verb, normal until the early 20th century, and recorded a former /prɪˈseɪdʒ/ for the noun as well.^[7] Merriam-Webster Unabridged now gives the noun first-syllable stress, and the verb either stress.^[3]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
14. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
15. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
16. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.