FORESTALLING • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Forestalling

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/fˌɔrstˈɑlɪŋ/ 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 'Forestalling'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Forestalling" Quotes from Famous Books

... if he wished to rub it in that whatever else Randall forgot, he wasn't to forget that, that he had nothing to look to, nothing to hope for in his father-in-law's prospects; as if he, Mr. Usher, had arranged this meeting at the "Bald-Faced Stag" for the express purpose of making that clear, of forestalling all possible misunderstanding. He kept it before him, with the cheese and beer, on the brown oil-cloth of the table from which poor Randall found it increasingly difficult to lift ...

— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... Now for a little plain speaking, the rarest social ingredient. A business which should consist in going out at night to look for goods to sell in the day would obviously be impossible. You find the instinct of forestalling the market in the very match-seller. How to forestall the market—that is the one idea of the so-called honest tradesman of the Rue Saint-Denis, as of the most brazen-fronted speculator. If stocks are heavy, sell you must. If sales are slow, you must tickle your customer; hence the signs of ...

— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac

... the world. It's for me to judge of the use, you know. Why, d'ye think I'd ask it if it wasn't any use? I'll make it of use, my boy. And take my word, you'll never hear about it again. It's just a forestalling of my salary; that's all. I wouldn't do it till I saw that we were at least safe for six months to come." Then Phineas Finn with many misgivings, with much inward hatred of himself for his own weakness, did put his name on the back of the bill which Laurence ...

— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... left him wholly unmoved? Was I to interpret the message which he had sent me by my mother as an additional sign of the extreme importance that he attached to the details of "society" life, or was he, apprehending my suspicions, forestalling them? Or, yet again, was he, too, tortured by the desire TO KNOW, by the urgent need of satisfying his curiosity by the sight of my face, whereon ...

— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... contrived to get themselves replaced on the panel, and had been the chief movers in the recent actions against the late mayor and other officers of the city. They had, moreover, taken bribes for concealment of offences of forestalling and regrating. Being found guilty, on their own confession, of having brought false charges against many of the aldermen, the Court of Common Council adjudged the whole of the accused to be disfranchised. Three of them, who were found more guilty than the rest, were sentenced ...

— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

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