A foregone conclusion
Suggest a CorrectionMeaning
An outcome treated as inevitable or effectively decided before full consideration. Often used with not or far from to reject overconfidence. It can describe either an inevitable outcome or a judgement reached too early. Regional use: Origin in English drama; now international English.
Origin
The earliest known use is in Shakespeare's Othello, written around 1603-04, where Othello calls an event imagined as already completed a 'foregone conclusion'. The original sense was therefore a conclusion about something that had gone before; during later use it settled into the familiar ideas of a pre-decided judgement and an inevitable result. The surviving evidence supports Shakespeare as the earliest known user, not certainty that he invented it.
Research Sources
Variants
- Foregone conclusion
- A foregone result
Usage Examples
- With only one bidder left, the contract award looked like a foregone conclusion.
- Promotion was never a foregone conclusion, however confident the team sounded.
- Once the final witness withdrew, acquittal became a foregone conclusion.