forecast
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A prediction about how something will develop.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
fawrkastSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfɔɹkæst
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A prediction about how something (as the weather) will develop
An estimation of a future condition.
verb
To estimate how something will be in the future.
To foreshadow; to suggest something in advance.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A prediction about how something (as the weather) will develop
Used this way, forecast is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This sense is used where position and measurement matter — travel, weather and flight — so it reads as factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Geography/travel
- Weather/aviation
- Technical/specialist writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use forecast
- “The weather forecast predicts rain for tomorrow morning.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A statement made about the future.
Someone who makes predictions of the future (usually on the basis of special knowledge).
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Predicting what the weather will be.
A forecast of the weather.
Predicts the weather.
A forecast of the expected financial position and the results of operations and cash flows based on expected conditions.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- noaanoun
- stormnoun
- meteorologicaladjective
- predictverb
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.