lookahead
noun
lookahead is spelled L-O-O-K-A-H-E-A-D: 9 letters. It appears about once in every 16 million words in written English, the 119,826th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, lookahead means “The analysis in advance of subsequent decisions that would be made if a particular branch of an algorithm was followed” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of lookahead is lookaheads.
How many letters and syllables are in lookahead?
| Letters | 9: L-O-O-K-A-H-E-A-D |
|---|---|
| In writing | about once in every 16 million words; the 119,826th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is lookahead?
Lookahead appears about once in every 16 million words in written English, the 119,826th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce lookahead?
- UK
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-lookahead.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of lookahead
- lookaheads plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does lookahead mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The analysis in advance of subsequent decisions that would be made if a particular branch of an algorithm was followed.
Our computer chess program uses lookahead to avoid difficult endgames.
- 2
The analysis of the subsequent characters before the regular expression is matched.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does lookahead come from?
Deverbal from look ahead.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).