Meaning
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
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- A foregone result
- Foregone conclusion
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.