EXPECTATION • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Expectation

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/ˌɛkspɛktˈeɪʃən/ Listen

noun

Expectation n.

1.

The act or state of expecting or looking forward to an event as about to happen. "In expectation of a guest." "My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from him."

2.

That which is expected or looked for. "Why our great expectation should be called The seed of woman."

3.

The prospect of the future; grounds upon which something excellent is expected to happen; prospect of anything good to come, esp. of property or rank. "His magnificent expectations made him, in the opinion of the world, the best match in Europe." "By all men's eyes a youth of expectation."

4.

The value of any chance (as the prospect of prize or property) which depends upon some contingent event. Expectations are computed for or against the occurrence of the event.

5.

(Med.) The leaving of the disease principally to the efforts of nature to effect a cure.

Expectation of life, the mean or average duration of the life individuals after any specified age.

Synonyms: Anticipation; confidence; trust.

See images of 'Expectation'

Etymology of 'Expectation'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Expectation" Quotes from Famous Books

... oppose that of the rest and thus to exercise selection; and all living things tend to multiply without limit, while the means of support are limited; the obvious cause of which is the production of offspring more numerous than their progenitors, but with equal expectation of life in the actuarial sense. Without the first tendency there could be no evolution. Without the second, there would be no good reason why one variation should disappear and another take its place; that is to say there would be no selection. ...

— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it overrule this. We offer no resistance to it.... If this important decision had been made by the unanimous concurrence of the judges, and without any apparent partisan bias, and in accordance with legal public expectation and with the steady practice of the departments throughout our history, and had been in no part based on assumed historical facts which are not really true; or if, wanting in some of these, it had been ...

— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... them much. The technique is still rumored to be a favorite of crackers operating against careless targets. 2. The practice of raiding the dumpsters behind buildings where producers and/or consumers of high-tech equipment are located, with the expectation (usually justified) of finding discarded but still-valuable equipment to be nursed back to health in some hacker's den. Experienced dumpster-divers not infrequently accumulate basements full of moldering (but still potentially ...

— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... of music," says a writer, "the fascinations of female loveliness, and the flattering devotion of the gallant brave, all was eager suspense and expectation, until there entered, unannounced and unattended, the mother of Washington, leaning on ...

— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... possession. Taking into consideration the utility of good building material to the present owners of such sites, active co-operation to preserve ancient masonry is not to be expected, unless local patriotism and expectation of traffic from tourists can be enlisted in support of Government regulations. Architectural fragments found in reconstruction are often best preserved by arranging that they shall be built conspicuously into one of the ...

— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various

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