Foregoing names what has just been mentioned, read, or dealt with. The foregoing means “what I have already said” or “what is written above.” You can also use it before a noun: the foregoing chapter, the foregoing remarks. It is almost always a written, formal word — contracts, essays, reports. In speech, people say what I just said or the bit above. The fore- here is the “before” kind: this is the part that went before, so it is already on the page. Though actually, almost nobody uses this word when they talk; if you put it in a friendly message it will sound stiff, as if you had borrowed a lawyer’s sentence.