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

Early on, when the heroine, the novice Isabella, is introduced with a prayer, the music seems to prefigure “Parsifal.”

From New York Times ● Jun. 26, 2022

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

"The sunshine is but a symbol of the Divine Love, the pushing buds but prefigure the Resurrection and the Life."

From Dreamers of the Ghetto by Israel Zangwill

In its range of diverse styles, his work prefigured the eclectic jazz of the 21st century.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 7, 2026

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

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

The logical laws are, as it were, prefigured in the child's mind long before, under the chemical action of experience they come out in the bright colors of consciousness.

From The Moral Instruction of Children by Felix Adler

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

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

Inevitably, one of the pods eventually malfunctioned, trapping a musician inside and prefiguring a famous scene from “This Is Spinal Tap.”

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 12, 2017

Then followed more direct representation in classic form and manner, the Old Testament prefiguring and emphasizing the New.

From A Text-Book of the History of Painting by John Charles Van Dyke