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

But even as the spare language of her lines endows them with a monumental feel, their brevity and levity also prefigure the semiotically fraught short exchanges of the texting era.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 17, 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

It tempers its poppy lushness with starker, harder music, although the burbling synth that runs throughout seems to prefigure New Order’s later direction.

From The Guardian ● Jul. 17, 2020

Gradually he put aside his perplexities concerning the future, permitting his mind to prefigure nothing but his duties with Landon at Meeker’s Mill.

From The Forester's Daughter A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range by Hamlin Garland

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

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

They did not expect what this vocabulary prefigured for their lives.

From Salon ● Sep. 24, 2024

He felt he should be prepared with an answer to the high challenge so prefigured, and he wondered at himself for still not having come to the point. 

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

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

From Salon ● Apr. 10, 2022

In 2017, Democrats made unexpected gains in the House of Delegates with candidates who were predominantly women and minorities, prefiguring the national trend of more diverse candidate pools.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 22, 2021

Notwithstanding the homeliness of the action, there is here a religious and mysterious significance, prefiguring the Baptism.

From Legends of the Madonna as Represented in the Fine Arts by Mrs. (Anna) Jameson