FORESTALL • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Forestall

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/fɔrstˈɔl/ Listen

verb

Forestall v. t. (past & past part. forestalled; pres. part. forestalling)

1.

To take beforehand, or in advance; to anticipate. "What need a man forestall his date of grief, And run to meet what he would most avoid?"

2.

To take possession of, in advance of some one or something else, to the exclusion or detriment of the latter; to get ahead of; to preoccupy; also, to exclude, hinder, or prevent, by prior occupation, or by measures taken in advance. "An ugly serpent which forestalled their way." "But evermore those damsels did forestall Their furious encounter." "To be forestalled ere we come to fall." "Habit is a forestalled and obstinate judge."

3.

To deprive; with of. (R.) "All the better; may This night forestall him of the coming day!"

4.

(Eng. Law) To obstruct or stop up, as a way; to stop the passage of on highway; to intercept on the road, as goods on the way to market.

To forestall the market, to buy or contract for merchandise or provision on its way to market, with the intention of selling it again at a higher price; to dissuade persons from bringing their goods or provisions there; or to persuade them to enhance the price when there. This was an offense at law in England until 1844.

Synonyms: To anticipate; monopolize; engross.

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Etymology of 'Forestall'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Forestall" Quotes from Famous Books

... vigorous scrubbing of gums unaccustomed to it. Artificial dentures should be removed. Even if no anesthetic is to be used, the patient should be fasted for five hours if possible, even for direct laryngoscopy in order to forestall vomiting. Except in emergency cases every patient should be gone over by an internist for organic disease in any form. If an endolaryngeal operation is needed by a nephritic, preparatory treatment may prevent laryngeal edema or other complications. Hemophilia ...

— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson

... this wide and wast Vacuity, Which endlesse is outstretched thorough all, And lies even equall with the Deity, Nor is a thing meerly imaginall, (For it doth farre mens phantasies forestall Nothing beholden to our devicefull thought) This inf'nite voidnesse as much our mind doth gall And has as great perplexities ybrought As if this empty space with bodies ...

— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More

... of keeping negro labor is in the unwillingness of the North to treat them justly, and we fear that this hope is more substantial than the North likes to admit. Justice ought to be cultivated everywhere for its own sake. Surely common sense will dictate to the South that it ought to forestall the disruption of our industrial establishment by causing negroes to understand that they are ...

— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott

... not over-exquisite To cast the fashion of uncertain evils; For, grant they be so, while they rest unknown, What need a man forestall his date of grief, And run to meet what he would most avoid? 90 MILTON: ...

— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various

... and to this end compulsion is a proper means. Forasmuch as my injustice may work ill to another, so by his injustice may evil be wrought upon still another, the which it is as manifestly my duty to estop as to forestall mine own tort. Wherefore if I would be righteous I am bound to restrain my neighbor, by force if needful, in all those injurious enterprises from which, through a better disposition and by the help of Heaven, ...

— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

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