future

From Middle English future, futur, from Old French futur, from Latin futūrus, irregular future active participle of sum (“I am”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- (“to become, be”). Cognate with Old English bēo (“I become, I will be, I am”). More at be. Displaced native Old English toweard in the given sense.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfjuːt͡ʃə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈfjuːt͡ʃɚ/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -uːtʃə(ɹ)

future (countable and uncountable, plural futures)

1. The time ahead; those moments yet to be experienced.
2. Something that will happen in moments yet to come.
3. Goodness in what is yet to come. Something to look forward to.
   • 2013 August 3, “Revenge of the nerds”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:

     Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.

   There is no future in dwelling on the past.

4. (grammar) Verb tense used to talk about events that will happen in the future; future tense.
5. (finance) Alternative form of futures
6. (computing, programming) An object that retrieves the value of a promise.
7. (sports) A minor-league prospect.

• (finance): The one who agrees to, at a future date, sell the commodity is considered to be selling the future; the other buys it.
• (finance): A non-standardized contract to buy and sell in the future is called forward or forward contract.

• (finance): forward

future (not comparable)

1. Having to do with or occurring in the future.

   Future generations will either laugh or cry at our stupidity.

   • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 731476803:

     So this was my future home, I thought! Certainly it made a brave picture. I had seen similar ones fired-in on many a Heidelberg stein. Backed by towering hills, […] a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.

   • 2019 February 3, “UN Study: China, US, Japan Lead World AI Development”, in Voice of America‎, archived from the original on 7 February 2019:

     It[The study] also attempts to predict the future progression of AI as it relates to new inventions.

     Audio (US)

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• IPA^(key): /fy.tyʁ/

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• Homophones: futur, futurs, futures

future

1. feminine singular of futur

• Rhymes: -ure

future

1. Feminine plural of adjective futuro.

futūre

1. vocative masculine singular of futūrus

• futur, ffutur, futire

Borrowed from Old French futur, from Latin futūrus, past participle of sum (cognate to Middle English been).

• IPA^(key): /fiu̯ˈtiu̯r/, /ˈfiu̯tur/, /ˈfiu̯tir/

future (plural futures)

1. (rare) A future action or doing; that which happens in the future.
2. (rare) The future; the time beyond the present.

• English: future
• Scots: futur

• “fūtūr(e (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-07-20.

future

1. Occurring after the present; future or upcoming.
2. (rare, grammar) Having the future tense; grammatically marking futureness.

• English: future
• Scots: futur

• “fūtūr(e (adj.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-07-20.

future

1. feminine singular of futur

future m (oblique plural futures, nominative singular futures, nominative plural future)

1. (grammar) future (tense)