foreshape

English

Etymology

From fore- +‎ shape.

Verb

foreshape (third-person singular simple present foreshapes, present participle foreshaping, simple past and past participle foreshaped)

1. (transitive) To shape or mould beforehand; prepare in advance.
   • 1867, The British controversialist and literary magazine, page 403:

     Thought forecasts and foreshapes experiment, and traces out the consequences as they arise, comparing them with the sharp directness of its expectations.

   • 1998, J. Melvin Woody, Freedom's Embrace - Page 79:

     What the self is to become thereby ceases to be a fate that haunts it or lies ambuscaded in its circumstances, for the self can foreshape its own career and reality.

   • 2002, Bridget Boardman, Poems of Francis Thompson - Page 80:

     Thou canst foreshape thy word; The poet is not lord […]

Noun

foreshape (plural not attested)

1. A forward or projecting form, piece, or shape.
   • 1982, Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office: Patents, volume 1018, number 1, page 158:

     [...] wherein this component means is in the form of a module, structurally comprises the forward nose portion of said weapon, and has a lenticular cross section with a foreshape conforming to a Sears-Haack half-body profile of least drag in width and thickness, [...]