Also for-. [f. FORE- pref. + LOOK v. (In sense 3 perh. f. FOR- pref.1)]
1. trans. To look it at see ahead or beforehand, foresee; to watch over. Also refl.
c. 1300. Cursor M. 8211 (Cott.).
| Bot godd, þ all has for to kepe, | |
| þat all for-lokes in his sight. | |
| Ibid., 28096 (Cott. Galba). | |
| Þarfore ilkman suld him forloke … | |
| þat his conciens be clene and bright. |
c. 1340. Richard Rolle of Hampole, Prick of Conscience, 1945.
| For swa certayne es here na man | |
| Þat can þe tyme of þe dede forluke. |
2. intr. To look ahead or forward.
1494. Fabyan, Chron., VII. 551. He shall dylygentlye foreloke and see that Goddys wylle be done and not his.
1603. B. Jonson, King’s Entertainm., 19 Wks. (Rtldg.), 529/2.
| Then did I forelook, | |
| And saw this day mark’d white in Clotho’s book. |
1847. Emerson, Poems, Monadnoc (1857), 146. The
| World-soul knows his own affair, | |
| Forelooking, when he would prepare | |
| For the next ages, men of mould | |
| Well embodied, well ensouled. |
† 3. To bewitch by a look. Cf. overlook. Obs.
1596. Thomas, Ital. Dict. (1606), Fascino, to bewitch … to forelooke.
1611. Cotgr., Ensorceler … To charme … fore-looke, eye-bite.
Hence Forelooking ppl. a. Also Forelooker, one who forelooks.
1381. Wyclif, Ecclus. iii. 34. God is the forlookere [Vulg. prospector] of hym that ȝeldeth grace. Ibid., xi. 32. As the forlookere seende the falling of his neȝhebore.
1870. Emerson, Soc. & Solit., Farming, vi. 188. Nature, like a cautious testator, ties up her estate so as not to bestow it all on one generation, but has a forelooking tenderness and equal regard to the next and the next, and the fourth and the fortieth age.
