Definition

1. Verb:
   • To represent or indicate something beforehand; to foreshadow: To show or suggest something that will happen in the future, often through a sign, symbol, or earlier example.
   • To imagine or picture something before it happens or exists: To form a mental image or conception of something in advance.

Examples of Usage

• Verb (foreshadow):
  • The early experiments with flight prefigured the development of modern aviation.
  • The political tensions in the region prefigured a larger conflict.
• Verb (imagine beforehand):
  • The architect prefigured the building's design in a series of detailed sketches.
  • It's difficult to prefigure how this new technology will change our daily lives.

Advanced Usage

• "to prefigure something as something": To imagine or portray something in a specific way beforehand.
  • The novelist prefigured the city not as a utopia, but as a complex, living organism.
• Used in theological or philosophical contexts to describe an earlier event or person seen as a prophetic type or model of a later one.
  • Scholars argue that certain Old Testament events prefigure the narrative of the New Testament.

Variants and Related Words

• Prefiguration (n): The act of prefiguring; something that prefigures a later event.
  • The artist's early sketches served as a prefiguration of her final masterpiece.
• Prefigurative (adj): Serving to prefigure or foreshadow.
  • The prefigurative symbols in the dream were later understood as warnings.

Synonyms

• Foreshadow: To give a warning or indication of a future event.
• Foresee: To be aware of beforehand; predict.
• Anticipate: To expect or look ahead to something.
• Adumbrate: To outline vaguely or foreshadow.

Related Phrases

• "to prefigure the future": To act as an early sign or model of what is to come.
  • Their community-based model of governance may prefigure the future of democracy.

Verb

1. indicate by signs
   • These signs bode bad news
2. imagine or consider beforehand
   • It wasn't as bad as I had prefigured