Prescience

[Emperor Harkonnen]

The words is in Dune Messiah so many times, but I dunno what it means. I have looked in a dictionary, but no luck.

Is it the thing they do when they inhale spice, like looking into the future?

[gryphon]

Yep, short and simple "seeing / knowing event's that will / might occure in the future."

[Acriku]

I never figured how to pronounce it except from the movie, I just thought it was "pree-saye inse". Hehe  ;)

[Emperor Harkonnen]

Thanks

[Nefud]

Here's a description for the word"prescience" from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary:

pre.science n

:foreknowledge of events:

a: divine omniscience

b: human anticipation of the course of events: FORESIGHT

-- pre.scient adj -- pre.scient.ly adv

[Emperor Harkonnen]

here is what I recieved about the word from doctor dictionary:

Word of the Day for Friday August 30, 2002:

prescient PRE-shee-uhnt, adjective:

Knowing or anticipating the outcome of events before they

happen.

Despite [1]Carroll's unfamiliarity with military matters he

had an astonishingly prescient view of how the war for

independence would be fought and won.

--Richard M. Ketchum, [2]Saratoga: Turning Point of

America's Revolutionary War

As England finally moves to undo its legal and political

separation from Europe, over 400 years after [3]Henry VIII

began it, it is easier to see [4]More as perhaps prescient,

rather than reactionary.

--Andrew Sullivan , "Public Man, Public Faith," review of

[5]The Life of Thomas More in [6]New York Times, October

25, 1998

The skepticism of Socrates about the application of

physical theories to human thought and behavior has proved

to be extraordinarily prescient.

--John Horgan, [7]The Undiscovered Mind: How the Human

Brain Defies Replication, Medication, and Explanation

Suddenly, the tech bubble burst, layoffs were hitting

Silicon Valley, the warnings of "irrational exuberance" in

the stock market proved prescient.

--Robin Toner, "Those Were the Days," review of [8]The Best

of Times in [9]New York Times, October 28, 2001

_________________________________________________________

Prescient derives (via French) from the Latin pr

[Acriku]

Thanks a bunch Supreme, helps me when I talk about it to people :)

[Emperor Harkonnen]

I'm here to help ;) :P

[Colonel_Worf]

Hey! Now I know how to pronounce it. Thanks. :-D

[nemafakei]

Hmm. The Oxford English Dictionary has it as being pronounced s-I-e* - ie with the s, i and e distinct, not "shu".

*upside-down, as in ago.

[Emperor Harkonnen]

Weird....but they don't use phonetic letters, so maybe that has something to with it...I doin't know

[nemafakei]

They use it, but I can't type it here.

[Emperor Harkonnen]

yes I know they use it in the oxford dictionary, but the mails I receive about english words, like prescient, don't have phonetic letters. and that sucks!

by the way does the phonetic letters exist on computers?

[Caid Ivik]

Preč

[Emperor Harkonnen]

nah, can't read it all, some cyrillic letters and a lot of numbers is the only thing I get out of it.

[Caid Ivik]

This english monopole is horrible.