prospective

USpruh-SPEK-tiv/pɹəˈspɛktɪv/

9 meanings of prospective

1
adjective
Likely or expected to happen or to come into being.
Analysts weighed the prospective benefits of the proposed reform.
The prospective shortage of water shaped the city's long-term plans.
Similarpotential, likely, expected, anticipated, possible
Note
The core future-facing sense comes through Middle French prospectif from Late Latin prospectivus, and it is kin to prospect. It does not take degrees: a thing is prospective or it is not, never more prospective. Its everyday home is the person in waiting, as with prospective students who have applied but are not yet admitted. That use grew into the informal noun.
2
adjective
Anticipated as coming about at some point in the future, whether soon or far off.
Engineers studied the prospective route long before any ground was broken.
Her notebook was full of prospective adventures she hoped to take one day.
Similarfuture, planned, intended, projected, proposed
Oppositepast
3
adjective
Looking forward in time; acting with foresight about what is to come.
A prospective approach to budgeting weighs tomorrow's needs against today's spending.
The council took a prospective stance, anticipating problems before they arose.
Similarforward-looking, farsighted, anticipatory, proactive
Oppositeretrospective, backward-looking, reactive
4
nouncolloquialcountable
A potential member, student, employee, or partner: someone being considered but not yet confirmed.
The admissions office sent brochures to every prospective on the mailing list.
Two of the prospectives accepted offers before the deadline.
Similarprospect, candidate, applicant, hopeful, recruit
Note
An informal noun clipped from phrases like prospective student or prospective member, keeping the adjective and dropping the person. It turns up most often in the plural, prospectives, in offices that recruit or admit people: meeting the prospectives at 3, or showing a prospective around. The 2006 magazine Verve stretches it to dating, calling possible partners "'could be, maybe not' prospectives".
5
adjective
Relating to a prospect or commanding view, or providing such an outlook.
The architect designed a prospective gallery facing the open valley.
From its prospective ridge, the lodge offered sweeping scenery in every direction.
Similarpanoramic, commanding, scenic
Note
Here the word stays closest to prospect in its first meaning, a view that opens out before the eye. Space and time blur easily in this sense. John Milton, writing in 1626, has a "Prospective Glass" that "Fore-saw what future dayes should bring to pass": a glass for looking far becomes a glass for looking ahead. That glass survives on its own as the old word for a spyglass.
6
adjective
Describing a research study that begins with the present situation and follows its participants forward into the future.
Researchers launched a prospective trial that enrolled thousands of volunteers and monitored their health for two decades.
A prospective design let the team observe how daily habits affected outcomes over many years.
Oppositeretrospective
Note
Medical research sorts its studies by which way they face in time. A prospective study enrolls its participants first and then waits to see what happens to them. A retrospective study works backward from records that already exist. The word usually pairs with study, trial, cohort or design. Calling a study prospective tells a reader that its outcomes were observed as they unfolded, not reconstructed afterward.
7
adjective
In grammar, indicating an action that is about to begin.
The language uses a prospective construction to show an event is on the point of starting.
A prospective marker signals that the speaker is just about to act.
Note
Linguists use the term for aspect, not tense. A prospective form presents an event as on the verge of starting, while a future tense simply places an event in time to come. English has no dedicated prospective ending. It does this work with phrases such as going to drive the car home, which point to an action that is already lined up.

Less common meanings

8
nounobsolete
The scene lying before or around one, in space or in time; a view or prospect.
the whole Scene of affairs was changed from Spain to France there now lay the prospective
1642, Henry Wotton, A Short View of the Life and Death of George Villiers
Note
Here the word once named the view itself: a landscape spread before the eye, or a stretch of time laid out ahead. Henry Wotton could still write in 1642 that the scene of affairs had moved from Spain to France and "there now lay the prospective." Today prospect or view does this work. Do not confuse it with the would-be member or recruit, which is a separate use of the noun.
9
nounobsolete
An optical instrument of earlier times, such as a telescope or spyglass, used for viewing distant objects.
The captain raised his prospective to scan the horizon for sails.
He peered through a worn prospective at the church tower across the valley.
Note
The instrument takes its name from the phrase prospective glass, cut down to its first word. In older English, prospective and perspective overlapped heavily. Francis Beaumont's masque of 1613 describes tents painted behind the stage "in prospective", where a modern writer would say in perspective. The word is obsolete in both uses. Today, telescope or spyglass names the device.

Practice

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Origin

This word comes from Middle French "prospectif", which derived from Late Latin "prospectivus".