foresight

From Middle English forsight, forsyght, forsichte, equivalent to fore- +‎ sight. Compare Scots foresicht (“foresight”), Saterland Frisian Foarsicht (“caution”), West Frisian foarútsjoch (“foresight”), Dutch voorzicht (“foresight”), German Vorsicht (“caution; care; attention”).

foresight (countable and uncountable, plural foresights)

1. The ability to foresee or prepare wisely for the future.

   Having the foresight to prepare an evacuation plan may have saved their lives.

   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: Printed [by Richard Field] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 932900760, book IV, stanza 1, page 1:

     The rugged forhead that with graue foreſight / Welds kingdomes cauſes, & affaires of ſtate; […]

2. the front sight on a rifle or similar weapon
3. (surveying) a bearing taken forwards towards a new object

• (ability to foresee or prepare wisely for the future): prescience, foreknowledge, divination, clairvoyance, prophecy

• hindsight

• foresightly
• foresighty

• foresee
• backsight

• gift horse, gift-horse