Words for Someone Who Can Predict the Future

On this page12 sections

1. Quick picker: which word do you need?
2. Words for someone with a supernatural gift
3. Religious and ancient words
4. Words for people who tell fortunes
5. Words for real people who predict well
6. Names used as labels: Nostradamus and Cassandra
7. Idioms and phrases about predicting the future
8. Verbs and nouns that go with them
9. Choosing well: tone and common mistakes
10. Example sentences for writers
11. Practice: choose the best word
12. Quick answers

The general word for someone who can predict the future is a prophet, a seer or a clairvoyant. If you mean the ability rather than the person, the adjective is prescient (realistic: a prescient warning) or precognitive (supernatural: a precognitive dream). For a real-world expert who makes good predictions, use forecaster, futurist or visionary.

Which one fits depends on two questions: is the power supernatural or just good judgement, and is your tone serious, historical or joking? The picker below answers that quickly; the sections after it give each word with its meaning, an example sentence and the traps.

Quick picker: which word do you need?

Words for someone with a supernatural gift

These words describe a person believed (or claiming) to know the future by means beyond ordinary reasoning. Most of them work in fantasy fiction, mythology and history, and most can be used sceptically too.

• Seer – literally “one who sees”. The most neutral, old-fashioned word and a favourite in fantasy writing. The seer saw the king’s death in the fire.
• Clairvoyant – from French clair (clear) + voyant (seeing). Someone said to perceive things beyond the senses: the future, distant places, hidden facts. As a noun (a clairvoyant) or adjective (clairvoyant powers). In everyday speech it is often a joke: “How should I know? I’m not clairvoyant.”
• Psychic – the broadest modern word for someone claiming extrasensory powers (predicting the future, reading minds, contacting the dead). It is the word you will see on a shop sign. She paid a psychic to tell her if she would move abroad.
• Precog – short for precognitive, a science-fiction word made famous by Philip K. Dick’s story “The Minority Report”, where precogs foresee crimes. Use it for sci-fi, not for real people.
• Mystic – someone who seeks hidden spiritual truth. It does not mean “predicts the future” by itself, so add the detail: a mystic who claimed to see the years ahead.
• Sibyl – in ancient Greece and Rome, a woman who uttered prophecies (the Sibyl of Cumae is the famous one). Today it is literary: the office sibyl, who always knew who was about to resign.

Religious and ancient words

These carry history with them. Use them when the setting is religious, classical or deliberately grand.

• Prophet (female: prophetess) – in religious use, a person believed to speak with divine authority. Note that a prophet in this sense is mainly a messenger; predicting the future is only part of it. In secular English, prophet is also common for anyone who foresees a trend: an early prophet of remote work. That use is normal, not a mistake.
• Oracle – in ancient Greece, the shrine (Delphi) or the priestess who answered questions on behalf of a god, often in riddles. Today, half-jokingly, someone whose advice is treated as infallible: the oracle of the finance department.
• Soothsayer – originally “truth-teller” (sooth is an old word for truth). It now sounds archaic and slightly theatrical; it is the word Shakespeare uses for the man who tells Caesar to “beware the Ides of March”.
• Augur – a Roman official who read the will of the gods from the flight and calls of birds. It survives in the verb augur (“to be a sign of”): The early sales augur well for the launch. (Not “augur good” – the idiom is augur well or augur ill.)
• Haruspex – a Roman priest who read the entrails of sacrificed animals. Very specific; useful in historical fiction.
• Diviner – someone who practises divination, finding hidden knowledge by ritual means (casting lots, reading omens). Also a water diviner, who uses a forked stick to look for water – that is about finding, not predicting.
• Druid – a priest in ancient Celtic religion, credited with divination in Roman accounts. It does not mean “fortune teller” on its own.

Words for people who tell fortunes

These name a method more than a gift, and usually suggest a paid service.

• Fortune teller – the everyday word. It can sound light or sceptical: a fortune teller in a tent at the funfair.
• Palm reader (palmistry), tarot reader (tarot cards), astrologer (stars and planets), numerologist (numbers), tea-leaf reader. Use the specific word when you know the method; it makes a description far more vivid than “fortune teller”.
• Crystal-gazer – someone who looks into a crystal ball. Also used figuratively for a person making confident guesses: economic crystal-gazers.

Do not mix up astrologer (claims the stars predict events) and astronomer (scientist who studies the stars). It is one of the most common slips in this whole word family.

Words for real people who predict well

Most of the time, when you describe a colleague, a writer or a leader who “saw it coming”, you mean good judgement, not magic. These words say that without sounding mystical.

• Forecaster – someone whose job is predicting: weather, sales, elections. The forecasters expect rain by evening.
• Futurist (or futurologist) – someone who studies likely futures, often in technology or society.
• Prognosticator – a formal, often humorous word for someone who makes predictions: the TV prognosticators got the election wrong again.
• Visionary – someone with original ideas about what the future could be. A visionary imagines and builds the future rather than just predicting it.
• Trend-spotter / trendsetter – a trend-spotter notices a trend early; a trendsetter starts one.
• Analyst, strategist – neutral professional words when the predictions come from data.

Adjectives for the same idea: prescient (knowing in advance; formal and admiring), far-sighted or forward-looking (planning for the future), perceptive and intuitive (reading situations well). Her prescient report warned about the supply shortage a year early.

Names used as labels: Nostradamus and Cassandra

• a Nostradamus – after the 16th-century French writer of vague prophetic verses. Usually ironic: I’m no Nostradamus, but I think the meeting will run late.
• a Cassandra – from the Trojan princess in Greek myth who was cursed to prophesy truly and never be believed. Use it for someone whose correct warnings are ignored: She was the Cassandra of the board, warning about debt nobody wanted to discuss. It is a precise word; do not use it for someone who is simply pessimistic.
• a prophet of doom or doom-monger – someone who always predicts disaster, whether right or not. Mildly critical.

Idioms and phrases about predicting the future

• see it coming – Nobody saw the merger coming.
• have a crystal ball – usually negative: I don’t have a crystal ball; I can’t tell you the exam questions.
• read the tea leaves – interpret small signs to guess what will happen: Investors are reading the tea leaves in the bank’s statement.
• the writing is on the wall – the signs of coming failure are clear (from the Book of Daniel).
• ahead of the curve / ahead of one’s time – seeing or doing things before others do.
• a sixth sense – an intuition that seems to go beyond the five senses: She has a sixth sense for which projects will fail.

For more expressions about time and what lies ahead, see our idioms about time.

Verbs and nouns that go with them

The spelling trap: prophecy (noun, rhymes with “see”) and prophesy (verb, ends like “sigh”). She prophesied a flood, and the prophecy came true.

Choosing well: tone and common mistakes

• Serious or sceptical? Seer and prophet treat the gift as real within the story. Fortune teller, soothsayer and self-proclaimed psychic invite doubt. Choose on purpose.
• Don’t give magic to real people by accident. Calling a colleague “clairvoyant” is a joke; calling them “prescient” or “far-sighted” is a compliment.
• Psychic is broad. A psychic might claim to read minds or talk to the dead, not only predict. If prediction is the point, clairvoyant or seer is sharper.
• Visionary is not a seer. A visionary imagines a better future; a seer is believed to see the actual one.
• Cassandra means unheeded, not gloomy. If the warnings were heeded, or wrong, the word does not fit.

Example sentences for writers

• The old seer would not look at the prince when she spoke of the coming winter. (fantasy)
• In the market square, a soothsayer sold warnings to anyone with a coin. (historical)
• The detective dismissed the clairvoyant until she named the street where the car was found. (mystery)
• Ten years ago he wrote that phones would replace wallets; it reads as prescient now. (non-fiction)
• Our sales forecaster called the slow quarter in June. (workplace)
• She had been the company’s Cassandra, and the audit proved her right. (figurative)

Practice: choose the best word

1. In Roman times, a(n) ______ studied the flight of birds before a battle.
2. Her report predicted the housing crash two years early. It was remarkably ______.
3. For a few coins, the ______ at the fair read his palm.
4. Everyone ignored her warnings, and every one of them came true. She was the team’s ______.
5. The verb is “to ______”, and the thing a prophet makes is a ______.
6. He keeps saying the project will fail. He’s a real ______.
7. In the sci-fi novel, the ______ foresee crimes before they happen.
8. The weather ______ expects snow by Friday.

Answers: 1. augur. 2. prescient. 3. fortune teller (or palm reader). 4. Cassandra. 5. prophesy; prophecy. 6. prophet of doom (or doom-monger) – not Cassandra, because nothing says he is right or ignored. 7. precogs. 8. forecaster.

Quick answers

What is one word for someone who can see the future? Seer is the most direct; clairvoyant and prophet are also common. As an adjective, prescient (real foresight) or precognitive (supernatural).

What do you call a person who predicts the future accurately in real life? A forecaster or futurist if it is their job; otherwise say they are prescient or far-sighted, or that they saw it coming.

What is the difference between a prophet and a psychic? A prophet is a religious messenger believed to speak for a god; a psychic claims a personal extrasensory gift and usually has no religious role.

What is a female seer called? Seer works for anyone. Older or specific words include prophetess, sibyl and seeress (rare).

Looking for more ways to describe people? See idioms for a smart person and words for someone who writes well. For how idioms, metaphors and other figures of speech work, start with our guide to figurative language.