Search the Dictionary

To ominate beforehand; to portend. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

To ordain or appoint beforehand: to predetermine: to foreordain. Milton.

To order to arrange beforehand; to foreordain. Sir W. Hamilton.

The act of preparing or fitting beforehand for a particular purpose, use, service, or condition; previous arrangement or adaptation; a making ready; as, the preparation of land for a crop of wheat; the preparation of troops for a campaign.

One who prepares beforehand, as subjects for dissection, specimens for preservation in collections, etc. Agassiz.

To pay in advance, or beforehand; as, to prepay postage.

To weigh or consider beforehand; to premeditate. [Obs.] Spenser. Sir T. Elyot.

a previous inclination to, for or against anything; esp., to induce a favorable opinion beforehand, or at the outset. It created him enemies, and prepossessed the lord general. Evelyn.

To provide beforehand. "The materials preprovided." Fuller.

To require beforehand. Some things are prerequired of us. Bp. Hall.

To resolve beforehand; to predetermine. Sir E. Dering.

To have a presentiment of; to feel beforehand; to foreknow.

Having knowledge of coming events; foreseeing; conscious beforehand. Pope. Henry . . . had shown himself sensible, and almost prescient, of this event. Bacon.

To select beforehand.

Feeling or perceiving beforehand.

The act of signifying or showing beforehand.

To intimate or signify beforehand; to presage.

To assume or take beforehand; esp., to do or undertake without leave or authority previously obtained. Dare he presume to scorn us in this manner Shak. Bold deed thou hast presumed, adventurous Eve. Milton.

To suppose beforehand; to imply as antecedent; to take for granted; to assume; as, creation presupposes a creator. Each [kind of knowledge] presupposes many necessary things learned in other sciences, and known beforehand. Hooker.

Fitted for trial beforehand; experimental. [R.] Sir H. Wotton.