prefigure

That certainly wasn’t the first time a Leonard Cohen song seemed to prefigure events that had not happened, or to capture a global state of mind before it fully coalesced.

From Salon ● Jan. 21, 2025

Exhibited in New York in 1952, the works prefigure the Pop Art movement by a decade; Warhol began drawing and painting dollar signs in the early 1960s.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 17, 2022

Its remaining original construction — in the vernacular idiom, with touches that prefigure the Baroque, and an Orientalist flared red ceramic tile roof — dates to the late 1500s.

From New York Times ● Sep. 24, 2021

People who have received the shots two to four weeks earlier should watch for symptoms that may prefigure the onset of clotting.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 13, 2021

Over the front door is the coat of arms of the poet's father, which consists of three lyres, as if to prefigure the destiny of the genius who first saw the light within its walls.

From Down the Rhine Young America in Germany by Oliver Optic

The rumored price increases from Samsung were prefigured in a note on the stock by Citi analyst Peter Lee last week.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 6, 2026

This improbable gift was succeeded by a clock-radio—a Sony Dream Machine with a blue digital display in a sleek white cube that prefigured Apple’s austere aesthetic.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026

He prefigured today’s globalized music economy long before it had language for itself, though his influence has often been oddly glossed over.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 25, 2026

It is widely understood to have prefigured the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the rise of modern conservatism.

From Slate ● Jan. 6, 2025

Even at San Pablo she had prefigured her member of Parliament; every now and then a wandering Englishman came within her range. 

From Lady Barbarina The Siege of London, An International Episode and Other Tales by Henry James

That’s one way to start a book—bracing and bitter, conveying Mary Cain’s scorn for the athletic-shoe-and-sportswear giant while prefiguring her larger message that “sports normalizes cruelty.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026

Aemond broke the fragile family supper truce by toasting his “strong” nephews, prefiguring battles that now seem imminent.

From New York Times ● Oct. 9, 2022

Smith was prefiguring a national movement that would open more roles to artists of color.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 10, 2022

You mention them as prefiguring the activism of the Freedom Summer.

From Salon ● Apr. 10, 2022

Women met to discuss them in each other's parlours, prefiguring the era of clubs.

From A Little Girl of Long Ago by Amanda Minnie Douglas