Word of the Day

: September 5, 2009

futurity

noun fyoo-TOOR-uh-tee

What It Means

1 : time to come : future

2 : the quality or state of being future

3 : future events or prospects

futurity in Context

The motivational speaker exhorted us to change the way we live today, rather than looking always toward some vague distant futurity.

Did You Know?

"Futurity" is a forward-looking word with a literate past. Its first known use is in Shakespeare's Othello, when the downtrodden Cassio, mystified about why Othello has turned against him, beseeches Desdemona to tell him whether his "offense be of such mortal kind / That nor my service past, nor present sorrows, / Nor purpos'd merit in futurity / Can ransom me into his love again." The term was also used by Benjamin Franklin ("I must one of these days go back to see him . . . but futurities are uncertain"), and Sir Walter Scott wrote of events "still in the womb of futurity" (that is, events that hadn't happened yet). Today, "futurity" often refers to a race, usually for two-year-old horses, in which the competitors are entered at birth or before, or to a race or competition for which entries are made well in advance of the event.