FORESTALLING • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Forestalling

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/fˌɔrstˈɑlɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Forestall v. t. (past & past part. forestalled; pres. part. forestalling)

1.

To take beforehand, or in advance; to anticipate. "What need a man forestall his date of grief, And run to meet what he would most avoid?"

2.

To take possession of, in advance of some one or something else, to the exclusion or detriment of the latter; to get ahead of; to preoccupy; also, to exclude, hinder, or prevent, by prior occupation, or by measures taken in advance. "An ugly serpent which forestalled their way." "But evermore those damsels did forestall Their furious encounter." "To be forestalled ere we come to fall." "Habit is a forestalled and obstinate judge."

3.

To deprive; with of. (R.) "All the better; may This night forestall him of the coming day!"

4.

(Eng. Law) To obstruct or stop up, as a way; to stop the passage of on highway; to intercept on the road, as goods on the way to market.

To forestall the market, to buy or contract for merchandise or provision on its way to market, with the intention of selling it again at a higher price; to dissuade persons from bringing their goods or provisions there; or to persuade them to enhance the price when there. This was an offense at law in England until 1844.

Synonyms: To anticipate; monopolize; engross.

See images of 'Forestalling'

Etymology of 'Forestalling'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Forestalling" Quotes from Famous Books

... of the schemes of employers to best the trade unions, of greedy shippers and greedy house landlords reaping their harvest, of waste and treason in the very households of the Ministry, of religious cant and intolerance at large, of self-advertisement written in letters of blood, of forestalling and jobbery, of irrational and exasperating oppressions in India and Egypt.... It came with a shock to him, too, that Hugh should see so little else than madness in the war, and have so pitiless a realisation of its essential futility. The boy forced his father ...

— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... The forestalling of his plans about the hiding-place in Paradise had upset Bryce's schemes—he had figured on being able to turn that secret, whatever it was, to his own advantage. It struck him now, as he meditated, that he had never ...

— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher

... when she will be home?" persisted Rolfe, forestalling an evident desire on the servant's part to shut the ...

— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... by the insensible progress of daily experience. Even this argument derived from its utter uselessness does not however weigh so much with us as the other argument derived from the want of common-sense, involved in the wilful forestalling and artificial concentrating into one long rosary of anomalies, what else the nature of the case has by good luck dispersed over the whole territory of the Latin language. To be consistent, a tutor should take the same proleptical course with regard to the prosody of ...

— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey--Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... girls this time!" exclaimed Miss Lyndesay. "That is a very becoming suit, Frieda," and then forestalling any answer, for she had known of Frau Lange's letter to Mrs. Eldred and had guessed that Frieda would not take altogether kindly to the new clothes, she inquired of Hannah as to the health of her father ...

— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett

Copyright © 2025 Free Translator.org