Make Your Point: PREMONITION

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pronounce PREMONITION:

PREM uh NISH un

connect this word to others:

The word premonition traces back to monere, the Latin word for "warn, advise, teach, or remind." It's related to words like monitor, monument, monster, and demonstrate.

A premonition is a forewarning, a sense that something bad is going to happen in the future. Maybe the near future.

So you might figure that you could pluck off the prefix and be left with the word monition, "a warning, not necessarily one delivered beforehand." You'd be right, but hardly anyone uses the word monition today. A similar one that we do use is __monition. Can you think of that one? To create it, just tack on a prefix that means "to or toward." It starts with a vowel.

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)

definition:

"Premonition" has Latin bits that literally mean "a warning before." So, in English, for centuries, that's what it's meant: "a forewarning: a sign or a feeling that something could happen."

Over time, the meaning narrowed slightly, and today a premonition is a feeling (or even a vision) that something bad is going to happen soon.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Noun, usually the countable kind: "I felt a premonition;" "Her character gets premonitions that drive the plot of the episodes."

Sometimes the uncountable kind: "A cold chill of premonition shivers up my back (Holly Black)."

Other forms:

The plural noun is "premonitions."

If you need an adjective, you can pick between "premonitive" and "premonitory."

how to use it:

Pick the formal, serious, semi-common word "premonition" to describe someone's sense of impending doom, whether it's vague or specific, accurate or inaccurate.

We talk about someone getting or having a premonition.

And we sometimes describe someone's "premonition that" something will happen, as in "Nostradamus published a premonition that a great nation would bleed."

But a premonition can also be of or about something: "a premonition of disaster," "a premonition of how the housing market would tailspin," "a premonition about fire and floods."

A premonition is grim by definition today, which makes it perfect for irony and sarcasm. Here's an example from Ted Conover: "I had a premonition that today's shift could be the best yet."

examples:

"She's into superstitions,
Black cats and voodoo dolls.
I feel a premonition
That girl's gonna make me fall."
— Ricky Martin, Draco Rosa, and Desmond Child; "Livin' la Vida Loca;" 1999

"I've replayed the day over and over in my head so many times and have written down every single detail, but I still can't find the foreshadowing. When someone dies, people always say they had some sort of premonition, a sinking feeling that something awful was right around the corner. I didn't."
— Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, 2017

has this page helped you understand "premonition"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "premonition" without saying "foreboding" or "omen."

try it out:

Daniel Kahneman dislikes the word "premonition." In Thinking, Fast and Slow, he wrote:

"Language implies that the world is more knowable than it is. It helps perpetuate a pernicious illusion. The core of the illusion is that we believe we understand the past, which implies that the future also should be knowable... Know is not the only word that fosters this illusion. In common usage, the words intuition and premonition also are reserved for past thoughts that turned out to be true... To think clearly about the future, we need to clean up the language that we use in labeling the beliefs we had in the past."

Talk about whether you agree or disagree with Kahneman. That is, do words like "premonition" let us pretend that "the world is more knowable than it is"? Why or why not?

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month is "Fill In For the Poet."

I'll give you a few lines from a poem, with a blank where a word that we've studied before appears, along with the word's definition. See if you can come up with it. If you can't, that's fine: fill in the blank to your satisfaction.

To check out some examples, head here.

Try this today:

From Layli Long Soldier's poem "38:"

As treaties were abrogated (broken) and new treaties were drafted, one after
another, the new treaties often referenced old _____ treaties, and it is a
muddy, switchback trail to follow.

Although I often feel lost on this trail, I know I am not alone.

Definition: "dead, or no longer in existence, as if off duty."

To see the word the poet chose, scroll all the way down.

review this word:

1. The opposite of PREMONITORY could be

A. ANTAGONIZING.
B. RETROSPECTIVE.
C. POST-INFLAMMATORY.

2. In The Witch of Blackbird Pond, a character wonders, "Was there some premonition... some _____?"

A. fortification that faced the river
B. shimmering green and white that fringed the turquoise bay of Barbados
C. foreknowledge that this was the last afternoon the three would ever spend together in the small cottage

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From my blog:
On vocabulary...
  36 ways to study words.
  Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
  How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
How to improve any sentence.
How to motivate our kids to write.
How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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