Prefigure: meaning, example and synonyms
Prefigurev. To show or suggest something in advance; to be an early sign of.
Example
The essayist's early letters, with their impatience toward convention, prefigure the radical arguments of her later treatises.
- Part of speech
- verb
- Synonyms
- foreshadow, presage, anticipate, herald
- Antonyms
- echo, recall, follow
- Memory tip
- pre (before) + figure (shape): the shape of things before they come.
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Check yourself: Prefigure in context
Scholars note that the painter's early sketches of swirling clouds ______ the turbulent abstractions that would dominate her mature work.
Answer: prefigure. Early sketches hinting at later work prefigure it. Replenish (refill), extricate (free) and dwindle (shrink) don't describe an early sign of what comes later.
In many myths, an omen such as a falling star or a sudden storm is said to ______ the fall of a city or the end of a royal line.
Answer: prefigure. An omen is an advance sign, so it prefigures the event. Entrench (fix firmly), replenish (refill) and extricate (free) don't describe signaling the future.