foreshadow
/fɔːˈʃædəʊ/
"foreshadow" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“foreshadow” is an uncommon English word, ranked #60,099 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #60,099
- frequency rank, English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To suggest (someone or something) in advance; to prefigure, to presage.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | foreshadow |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /fɔːˈʃædəʊ/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #60,099 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “foreshadow” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for foreshadow is 10 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /fɔːˈʃædəʊ/. Corpus data places it at rank #60,099 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
foreshadow has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: The verb is derived from fore- (prefix meaning ‘before with respect to time, earlier’) + shadow (“to shade, cloud, or darken”, verb). The noun is derived from fore- + shadow (“faint and imperfect representation”, noun), probably modelled after the verb whic… The correct English form is foreshadow, spelled F-O-R-E-S-H-A-D-O-W.
Definition
- 1To suggest (someone or something) in advance; to prefigure, to presage.
- 2Of a person: to have an intuition or premonition about (something); to forebode.
Etymology
The verb is derived from fore- (prefix meaning ‘before with respect to time, earlier’) + shadow (“to shade, cloud, or darken”, verb). The noun is derived from fore- + shadow (“faint and imperfect representation”, noun), probably modelled after the verb which is attested earlier.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “foreshadow”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is F-O-R-E-S-H-A-D-O-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /fɔːˈʃædəʊ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.