Expect Definition
Contents
English
Part or all of this page has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
Etymology
From Latin expectāre, alternative form of exspectō (“look out for, await, expect”), from ex (“out”) + spectō (“look at”), frequentative of speciō (“see”).
Pronunciation
Verb
expect (third-person singular simple present expects, present participle expecting, simple past and past participle expected)
- To look for (mentally); to look forward to, as to something that is believed to be about to happen or come; to have a previous apprehension of, whether of good or evil; to look for with some confidence; to anticipate; -- often followed by an infinitive, sometimes by a clause (with, or without, that).
- I expect to receive wages.
- I expect that the troops will be defeated.
- To consider obligatory or required.
- To consider reasonably due.
- You are expected to get the task done by the end of next week.
- (continuous aspect only, of a woman or couple) to be pregnant, to consider a baby due
- (obsolete) To wait for; to await.
- (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare:
- Let's in, and there expect their coming.
- (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare:
Usage notes
- Expect is a mental act and has always a reference to the future, to some coming event; as a person expects to die, or he expects to survive. Think and believe have reference to the past and present, as well as to the future; as I think the mail has arrived; I believe he came home yesterday, that he is he is at home now. There is a not uncommon use of expect, which is a confusion of the two; as, I expect the mail has arrived; I expect he is at home. This misuse should be avoided. Await is a physical or moral act. We await that which, when it comes, will affect us personally. We expect what may, or may not, interest us personally. See anticipate.
- This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive. See Appendix:English catenative verbs
Synonyms
Derived terms
- expected adjective
- expecting adjective
- unexpected
Related terms
Statistics
- Most common English words before 1923: glass · silver · winter · #962: expect · nation · legal · spread
External links
- expect in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- expect in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
- expect at OneLook Dictionary Search
Anagrams
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Expect is a Unix automation and testing tool, written by Don Libes as an extension to the Tcl scripting language, for interactive applications such as telnet, ftp, passwd, fsck, rlogin, tip, ssh, and others. It uses Unix pseudo terminals to wrap up subprocesses transparently, allowing the automation of arbitrary applications that are accessed over a terminal. With Tk, interactive applications can be wrapped in X11 GUIs.