Forecast

How to spell forecast

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce forecast

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does forecast mean?

1. nounA statement predicting what is likely to happen, especially about the weather, finances, or business performance.
2. verbTo predict or estimate a future event or trend, usually from current data.

Forecast in a sentence

• noun

  The weather forecast warned of heavy rain over the weekend.

• verb

  Analysts forecast a slowdown in housing prices next year.

• noun

  The quarterly sales forecast showed steady growth across all regions.

• verb

  Meteorologists can forecast storms several days in advance.

Where does forecast come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Forecast comes straight from Middle English and is built entirely from native Germanic parts, which is why it has no exotic spelling. The prefix fore- meant 'before' or 'in advance', the same element seen in foretell, foreshadow and forewarn. The second part, cast, came from Old Norse kasta, 'to throw', and by the medieval period it had also picked up the sense of 'to reckon up' or 'to calculate', as in casting accounts. Joined together in the late 1300s, the verb literally meant 'to calculate beforehand' or 'to plan in advance', and from that practical accounting and planning sense it later narrowed to mean predicting future events, especially the weather. The spelling stays transparent once you see it as two ordinary English words, fore plus cast, set side by side.

How the word is built

• fore- (before, in advance)
• cast (throw, reckon, calculate)