prospect

Pluralprospects

Formsprospects, prospecting, prospected

1. 1
   nouncountable

   Things that may come to pass in the future, especially favorable ones.

   The prospect of rain left the picnic plans uncertain.

   Her career prospects improved sharply after she earned the degree.

   Similaroutcome

   Note

   The future-facing sense, and one comfortable in the plural: career prospects, or England's "qualification prospects" in a 2011 BBC match report. In the singular it usually follows at or of, as in concern "at the prospect of so large a case" in the American novelist Winston Churchill's The Celebrity (1897). It often leans hopeful, but not always: James Hutton found "no prospect of an end."

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of looking forward to what lies ahead, whether by foreseeing it or by anticipating it.

   The prospect of another round of layoffs kept the whole office on edge.

   With the wedding still months in prospect, they had plenty of time to plan.

   Similarexpectation, anticipation, possibility, likelihood, thought

   Oppositeretrospect

   Note

   The forward look of the visual sense turned toward time. John Tillotson in 1663 asks whether a prudent man lives "without any prospect to, or provision for" the rest of his life. Locke writes of "a very ill prospect of a future state." Today the phrase in prospect, meaning still ahead, keeps this anticipatory sense in use.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A person or organization that might become a client or customer.

   Each prospect receives a follow-up email within a day of the call.

   The team ranked their prospects by how likely each one was to buy.

   Similarlead

   Note

   In the sales pipeline, someone becomes a prospect once they look like a likely buyer. They fit the target profile and have been qualified for interest or fit. They stop being one at the first purchase. The word covers a single person or a whole organization, and sales teams routinely rank prospects by how likely each is to buy.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A player who has yet to appear in a game for the top-level professional team that owns their playing rights.

   The club's brightest prospect spent the year in the minor leagues.

   Several prospects were called up after the wave of injuries.

   Note

   Professional sports give the hopeful a contractual meaning. The player's rights already belong to a top-level club, but the player has not yet appeared for it, and is often developing in the minor leagues or a development squad. The test is the debut: once the player takes the field for the top team, the label no longer fits. Looser use, for any promising youngster, belongs to the broader "hopeful" sense.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   The stretch of land or scene that the eye takes in at one time; a view or outlook.

   The tower offered a sweeping prospect across the entire valley.

   Travelers paused to take in the grand prospect of the coastline.

   Similarview, vista, panorama, outlook, scene

   Note

   The sense closest to the word's Latin root: prospectus, from prospicere, "to look forward", built from pro, "before, forward", and specere, "to look". Here a prospect is whatever lies spread before the eye. Milton uses it of a scout cresting a hill as a foreign land unfolds below. The same Latin gave English prospectus, its doublet, and the forward look later turned toward time in the sense of foresight.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A picturesque or panoramic view of scenery; a landscape, or a sketch or picture of a landscape.

   The gallery displayed an eighteenth-century prospect of the river town.

   From the terrace they enjoyed a charming prospect of gardens and distant hills.

   Similarview, landscape, panorama, vista, scene

   Note

   In the seventeenth century you could take a prospect the way we take a photograph. John Evelyn went to Putney in 1649 "to take prospects in crayon" and planned to have them engraved in France. The word therefore names both the scene and the picture of it. In description it pairs readily with words of breadth, as in O. S. Nock's "wide prospect up stream" of 1947.

7. 7
   verbintransitive

   To search an area for gold or other valuable minerals.

   Thousands rushed to California to prospect for gold.

   He prospected along the riverbed, hoping for a lucky strike.

   Similarsearch, explore, dig

   Note

   The searching verb takes no direct object. It is followed by for, or by a place: one prospects for gold, or prospects along a riverbed. The search need not be for metal. In 1904, M. A. Stein describes "prospecting parties" sent out to scout ancient desert sites for excavation. When the aim is to establish what the ground contains, the word shades into the geologist's survey.

8. 8
   verbtransitive

   To examine an area in order to determine which minerals or metals are present there.

   Geologists prospect remote regions to locate deposits of rare metals.

   The firm prospected the old field and found traces of silver.

   Similarsurvey, explore, examine, investigate, search

   Note

   Geology and mining use the verb for systematic assessment rather than a hopeful search. The work involves sampling, surveying or assay to identify which metals or minerals a site holds before commercial mining begins. Unlike the gold-seeker's search, it can take the ground itself as its object: a firm prospects a field.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   A thing hoped for, or a person regarded as promising and likely to succeed.

   Coaches see him as a genuine prospect for the national team.

   Among the new hires, she stands out as the strongest prospect.

   Similarcandidate, contender, hopeful, possibility

10. 10
    nouncountable

    A place or position that commands a fine view of its surroundings, such as a lookout point.

    The old fort sits on a prospect overlooking the entire bay.

    Climbers rested at a high prospect that revealed the whole mountain range.

    Similarlookout, viewpoint, overlook, vantage

    Note

    Here the word names the vantage point rather than what is seen from it. Milton gives it to God, who looks "from his prospect high" over past, present and future at once, a lookout that commands time as well as space. Lookout is the plainer equivalent. The scene itself belongs to the view the eye takes in.

11. 11
    nouncountable

    The direction or relative position in which the front of a building or structure faces; its aspect.

    The mansion's eastern prospect caught the morning light.

    Architects favored a southern prospect for the warmth it brought to the rooms.

    Similaraspect, orientation, exposure, frontage

    Note

    A building's prospect is the way it faces, so the word naturally takes a direction: the King James Bible of 1611 has "Their prospect was toward the south." Prospect toward a compass point is the construction to use. Aspect is the close synonym. Don't confuse it with the view itself: that is what a front looks out on, not which way it turns.

12. 12
    nouncountable

    The visible front or facade of a pipe organ, including its display pipes and casework.

    Restorers cleaned the gleaming prospect of the cathedral organ.

    The baroque prospect featured symmetrical rows of silvered pipes.

    Similarfacade, front

    Note

    Organ builders use the word for the instrument's public face: the casework and display pipes that look out toward the listener. Many of those pipes may be non-speaking, placed for visual effect rather than sound, so a prospect is as much architecture as acoustics. The usage sits naturally beside a building's facing front.

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