PROPHECY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does prophecy mean? 

• PROPHECY (noun)
  The noun PROPHECY has 2 senses:

1. knowledge of the future (usually said to be obtained from a divine source)

2. a prediction uttered under divine inspiration

  Familiarity information: PROPHECY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PROPHECY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Knowledge of the future (usually said to be obtained from a divine source)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

prognostication; prophecy; vaticination

Hypernyms ("prophecy" is a kind of...):

anticipation; prediction; prevision (the act of predicting (as by reasoning about the future))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "prophecy"):

crystal gazing (staring into a crystal ball to arouse visions of future or distant events)

divination; foretelling; fortune telling; soothsaying (the art or gift of prophecy (or the pretense of prophecy) by supernatural means)

Derivation:

prophetic; prophetical (foretelling events as if by supernatural intervention)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A prediction uttered under divine inspiration

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

divination; prophecy

Hypernyms ("prophecy" is a kind of...):

forecasting; foretelling; prediction; prognostication (a statement made about the future)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "prophecy"):

oracle (a prophecy (usually obscure or allegorical) revealed by a priest or priestess; believed to be infallible)

Derivation:

prophetic; prophetical (foretelling events as if by supernatural intervention)

 Context examples 

As the days went by, Smoke’s prophecy was verified.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

So they ate, and after that they bargained how much the miller was to give for the fifth prophecy, until they agreed on three hundred talers.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

A wise woman hath made prophecy that this blind side will one day be the death of me.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Sherlock Holmes’s prophecy was soon fulfilled, and in a dramatic fashion.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But Iceland’s most celebrated medieval poem, Vǫluspá (‘The prophecy of the seeress’) does appear to give an impression of what the eruption was like.

(Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity, University of Cambridge)

She had to destroy all the hopes which she had been so industriously feeding—to appear in the ungracious character of the one preferred—and acknowledge herself grossly mistaken and mis-judging in all her ideas on one subject, all her observations, all her convictions, all her prophecies for the last six weeks.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Mrs. Jennings's prophecies, though rather jumbled together, were chiefly fulfilled; for she was able to visit Edward and his wife in their Parsonage by Michaelmas, and she found in Elinor and her husband, as she really believed, one of the happiest couples in the world.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

“And look out for squalls,” is Louis’s prophecy, “for they hate one another like the wolf whelps they are.”

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

But scarcely had she touched it, before the fairy’s prophecy was fulfilled; the spindle wounded her, and she fell down lifeless on the ground.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

The poem’s interpretation as a prophecy of the end of the pagan gods and their replacement by the one, singular god, suggests that memories of this terrible volcanic eruption were purposefully provoked to stimulate the Christianisation of Iceland.

(Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity, University of Cambridge)