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This is knowing that something will happen before it happens — not because you planned it, and not because you read clues the way a detective does. The knowledge seems to arrive early. People mostly use it for a strange, almost magic kind of knowing: a dream that later comes true, a sudden picture of an accident before anyone has heard the news. Scientists argue about whether this is real; many say the brain is simply good at patterns, and we remember the hits. Though actually, in careful talk, precognition is the knowing itself. A precognitive dream is only one way it might show up. You will meet the word in films, ghost stories, and psychology more than in shops or chat. It feels heavy and Latin. Everyday English is more likely to say “I just knew” or “I had a feeling something bad would happen.”
預知、預知能力
組成Borrowed from Middle French precognition, from Latin praecognitio, from praecognōscō, “to know beforehand.” Same pieces as pre- (“before”) + cognition (“knowing, thinking”). Wiktionary also notes it as a doublet of Germanic foreknowledge and Greek prognosis: three words, three language families, one basic idea of knowing ahead.
同家族的字
- cognitionthe second half: knowing and thinking
- cognitivethe adjective from that same “knowing” piece
- prognosisGreek-based doublet: a doctor’s picture of how an illness will go
- foreknowledgeGermanic doublet: knowing ahead, usually without the psychic flavour
原始詞典資料2 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
precognitionnoun/ˌpɹiːkɒɡˈnɪʃn̩/
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parapsychologypseudoscienceKnowledge of the future; understanding of something in advance, especially as a form of supernatural or extrasensory perception.
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The practice of taking a factual statement from a witness before a trial.
- ‘But it seems there are some strong presumptuous proofs against you, and I came to warn you this day that a precognition is in progress, and that unless you are perfectly convinced, not only of your innocence, but of your ability to prove it, it will be the safest course for you to abscond, and let the trial go on without you.’
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。