foretelling
Foretelling is the act of predicting or revealing events in the future. In religious and cultural contexts, it often refers to statements by a seer, prophet, oracle, or other mediator claiming to disclose future outcomes. In secular usage, it can denote the act of predicting future events based on analysis or models, though this distinction is not always observed in everyday language. Etymology: from Old English fore tellan "to tell beforehand"; the noun foretelling is the act or process of such prediction.
Historical and cultural contexts: Many civilizations used foretelling to guide decisions: oracles of Delphi, prophecies in
Modern evaluation and critique: Foretelling claims that are not empirically testable are typically considered unproven. In
Contemporary usage: In science and policy, "forecasting" is used to describe probabilistic predictions based on data