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

The problem of his own life was what this hour held in its shifting hold for Justin, the wavering veiled outlines on which he gazed seemed to prefigure the uncertain boundaries of his own future.

From The Wayfarers by Mary Stewart Doubleday Cutting

“That selectivity is prefigured, and preprogrammed, by the history of Christendom.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 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

Indeed, the epic “Rock Show” prefigured McCartney’s plans for conquering the rock ‘n’ roll box office.

From Salon ● Mar. 21, 2025

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

“It is true,” writes Preger, “that Dante saw these two women prefigured in a dream as Leah and Rachel, and that Leah said, referring to her sister, ‘Her seeing, and me doing, satisfies.’

From Matelda and the Cloister of Hellfde Extracts from the Book of Matilda of Magdeburg by Matilda of Magdeburg

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

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

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

Thereby their fate is a copy of the prefiguring fate of Christ Jesus.

From Christianity As Mystical Fact And The Mysteries of Antiquity by Harry Collison