prefigure
/priːˈfɪɡə
/verb [with object]
1Be an early indication or version of (something): the Hussite movement prefigured the Reformation...
- It was prefigured by earlier productions in 1911 and 1916.
- Yet his opposition to racism won him strong support among northern free blacks, particularly in New England, and in this respect his activities prefigured the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
- Yet it contains an important truth - that the style and tone of a government are set early and do prefigure future actions.
Synonyms
foreshadow, be an early indication of, presage, be a presage of, be a harbinger of, herald, suggest, indicate, point to
literary foretoken
2 archaic Imagine beforehand: I lay awake, prefiguring the future...
- Mead describes human existence as evolving toward an open future that cannot be prefigured with any finality.
Derivatives
prefiguration
- One could view such Pentecostal sectarian movements as prefigurations of contemporary developments.
- Cooper's idea was for ‘a powerful beast from a lost world… giving a hint, a prefiguration of the dawn of man.‘
- The ‘cumulative effect’ Carter speaks of is prefiguration.
prefigurative
- Within this framework, much of the First Testament has functioned in a typological or prefigurative manner, or as a shadow-like version of the truth God revealed in the gospel.
- All of this material becomes part of the prefigurative, the everyday world from which program creators construct narrative.
- Indeed, the prefigurative approach embraced by Kovel is an essential step forward.
prefigurement
- The most enthusiastic Europeans ‘Venusians,’ see the present European Union as the model, indeed the prefigurement, of a world run by ‘soft power.’
- He does not look for prefigurement of the Gospel even in the Old Testament.
Origin
Late Middle English: from ecclesiastical Latin praefigurare 'represent beforehand', from prae 'before' + figurare 'to form, fashion'.