as in to anticipate
to give a slight indication of beforehand
the strife in Bloody Kansas in the 1850s adumbrated the civil war that would follow
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Recent Examples of adumbrate
In between, works by contemporaries complicate superficial ideas about his meteoric genius, and small, delicate drawings teem with an abundance of ideas — paintings never made, thoughts adumbrated then abandoned.
—
Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, 18 Oct. 2019
Nothing in America’s tepid 19th-century contributions to European classical music adumbrated it; nor did the homely and sometimes hokey popular songs of Stephen Foster.
—Heather Mac Donald, National Review, 22 Aug. 2019
The helicopter crash, on the other hand, is a narrative dead end, merely adumbrating the portrait that Mr. Davenport will draw of Mr. Bezos as unflappable.
—Randall Stross, WSJ, 15 Apr. 2018
Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, 18 Oct. 2019
Nothing in America’s tepid 19th-century contributions to European classical music adumbrated it; nor did the homely and sometimes hokey popular songs of Stephen Foster.
—Heather Mac Donald, National Review, 22 Aug. 2019
The helicopter crash, on the other hand, is a narrative dead end, merely adumbrating the portrait that Mr. Davenport will draw of Mr. Bezos as unflappable.
—Randall Stross, WSJ, 15 Apr. 2018
Recent Examples of Synonyms for adumbrate
Verb
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By Saturday evening as much as 10 to 12 inches of rain is anticipated across parts of the region.—
Doyle Rice,
USA Today,
2 Apr. 2025
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The second time was long anticipated by the members of my Brownie Troop.—
Miami Herald Archives,
Miami Herald,
2 Apr. 2025
Verb
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As that single foreshadowed, Will Smith now has a new album out, his first in 20 years, Based on a True Story.—
Craig Jenkins,
Vulture,
28 Mar. 2025
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Saturday's actions were foreshadowed two weeks ago, when Gavin Kliger, a former Twitter software engineer who is now part of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team, was spotted inside VOA headquarters, sources told Axios.—
Sara Fischer,
Axios,
16 Mar. 2025
Verb
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The club said that this sort of injury is impossible to predict and this speculation is hindsight.—
Jay Harris,
New York Times,
2 Apr. 2025
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Instead of probabilistically predicting the next token in a sequence, these systems learn to represent the world at multiple levels of abstraction and to predict how their representations will evolve under different conditions.—
Jason D. Greenblatt,
MSNBC Newsweek,
2 Apr. 2025
Verb
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More about Jason Zinoman Inside the World of Comedy A new documentary shows how Andy Kaufman’s upside-down world of anti-comedy prefigured our own.—
Jason Zinoman,
New York Times,
28 Mar. 2025
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With his extraordinary series of books prefiguring the rockets and robots that could set the stage for the human exploration and transformation of Mars, Zubrin is widely considered the supreme conceptual creator of a future Eden-like New World on Mars.—
Kevin Holden Platt,
Forbes,
17 Mar. 2025
Verb
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This implies a poor Debt-to-Equity Ratio of 64.7% (vs. 19.0% for S&P 500).—
Trefis Team,
Forbes.com,
4 Apr. 2025
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Didn't Ultron And Raza Both Die? Interestingly, both characters suffered similar fates in their respective films in that it is heavily implied both are killed, but never confirmed.—
Lee Habeeb,
MSNBC Newsweek,
3 Apr. 2025
Verb
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After a June event heralding a new AI-powered Siri, the company has delayed its release indefinitely.—
Allison Morrow,
CNN Money,
27 Mar. 2025
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When the 2026 rules were announced, improved cost control was heralded as one of their benefits, but Tombazis said their expense was a consideration.—
Luke Smith,
New York Times,
26 Mar. 2025
Verb
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The White House foresees the automotive tariffs to generate $100 billion annually.—
Josh Hammer,
MSNBC Newsweek,
1 Apr. 2025
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The storms are foreseen to bring wind gusts of up to 60 mph and quarter-sized hail (1 inch).—
STAR-TELEGRAM WEATHER BOT,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
30 Mar. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Adumbrate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/adumbrate. Accessed 12 Apr. 2025.
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