[f. FORE- pref. + SHADOW v.] trans. To serve as the shadow thrown before (an object); hence, to represent imperfectly beforehand, prefigure. Also rarely (of a person), to have a foreboding of.
1577. Vautrouillier, Luther on Ep. Gal., 146. The ceremonies commanded in the law, did foreshadow Christ.
a. 1677. Barrow, Serm., Wks. 1761, II. xxvii. 288. The excellency and efficacy of this death and passion might appear, it was by manifold types fore-shadowed, and in divers prophecies fore-told.
1855. H. Spencer, Princ. Psychol. (1872), II. VI. xxvii. 297. These intuitions are foreshadowed in the very first stages of an incipient consciousness.
1860. Motley, Netherl. (1868), I. i. 23. The surrender of Ghent foreshadowed the fate of Flanders and Brabant.
1864. Dickens, Our Mut. Fr., II. xiv. Another consequence that he had never foreshadowed, was the implication of an innocent man in his supposed murder.
Hence Foreshadowed ppl. a.; Foreshadowing vbl. sb. Also Foreshadower, one who or that which foreshadows.
1848. Dickens, Dombey, xx. Because the feeling it awakened in him—of which he had had some old foreshadowing in older times—was full-formed now, and spoke out plainly, moving him too much, and threatening to grow too strong for his composure.
1866. Geo. Eliot, F. Holt, xvii. It requires a conviction and resolution amounting to heroism not to wince at phrases that class our foreshadowed endurance among those common and ignominious troubles which the world is more likely to sneer at than to pity.
1870. Morris, Earthly Par., I. I. 306.
| That world might not be quite an empty dream, | |
| But dim foreshadowings of what yet might come | |
| When they perforce must leave that new-gained home. |
1877. Chamb. Jrnl. 22 Sept., 604/1. But having set up omens with such an object, we, in the cleft-stick of our own superstition, are bound to believe their absence or converse, the foreshadowers of evil.
