Hindsight

How to spell hindsight

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hindsight

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hindsight mean?

1. nounUnderstanding of a situation or event that becomes clear only after it has happened.

Hindsight in a sentence

• With hindsight the warning signs about the merger were obvious.

• In hindsight she should have booked the flights a month earlier.

Where does hindsight come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English compound built from two old Germanic elements. The first part, 'hind', comes from Old English 'hindan', meaning 'from behind' or 'at the back', the same root that gives us the 'hind' legs of an animal and the word 'behind'. The second part, 'sight', descends from Old English 'gesiht' or 'siht', meaning the faculty of seeing, and it carries the 'gh' spelling that once stood for a throaty consonant long since gone silent. 'Hindsight' itself is relatively young: it was coined in the nineteenth century, deliberately modelled as the opposite of the much older 'foresight', so that 'fore' (looking ahead) is mirrored by 'hind' (looking back). The figurative sense, understanding an event clearly only after it has happened, was there from the start and remains its everyday meaning. The spelling is logical once you see the two halves, with the only quiet trap being the unsounded 'gh' borrowed from 'sight'.

How the word is built

• hind (behind, at the back)
• sight (the act of seeing)