Read along with the three podcasts, or open the full dictionary entry for Envisage for the definition, Arabic meaning, synonyms and example sentences.
Narrator: Today's word is envisage — a verb, pronounced in-VIZ-ij, written /ɪnˈvɪz.ɪdʒ/.
Narrator: To envisage something is to form a mental picture of it — usually a future possibility you are considering, planning, or expecting.
Narrator: It comes from the Old French envisager — to look in the face — built from en-, meaning in, and visage, meaning face. Literally, to look something in the face.
Narrator: In its earliest English use it meant just that — to confront something directly. Over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the meaning shifted inward to the mind's eye.
Narrator: Today, to envisage a future is to look it in the face mentally — to consider it as something real enough to plan around.
Narrator: In British English we tend to use envisage; American English prefers envision. Both mean broadly the same thing, but envisage carries a slightly more measured, considered tone.
Narrator: Its register is professional and reflective. You will hear it in board meetings, in policy papers, in interviews — anywhere people are thinking carefully about what might happen next.
Narrator: Remember it like this — to envisage something is to give it a face in your mind before it has one in the world.
Speaker A: When we started the bakery, did you ever envisage having three branches by year five?
Speaker B: Honestly, no. I envisaged one shop and maybe a market stall on Saturdays. Anything beyond that felt like fantasy.
Speaker A: Funny how plans evolve. Envisage is a nice word for that — it sounds careful, not naive.
Speaker B: Exactly. If I said I dreamed of three branches, it would sound a bit airy. Envisaging is more grown-up.
Speaker A: Is envisage the same as envision?
Speaker B: Almost. Envision is more common in American English, and it tilts slightly toward inspiration — a leader envisions a future. Envisage is more British and slightly more practical — a planner envisages risks.
Speaker A: And imagine?
Speaker B: Imagine is much broader and more playful — you can imagine a dragon eating your homework. Envisage carries an implicit assumption that what you're picturing could realistically happen.
Speaker A: Got it. Any common mistake?
Speaker B: Yes — people often follow it with the wrong preposition or noun form. You envisage a scenario, not envisage about a scenario. And the noun form is envisaging, not envisagement.
Speaker A: So — we envisage the new store opening in spring, assuming the permits come through.
Speaker B: Perfect. Measured, professional, and exactly the right tone for a serious plan.
Envisage — meaning in Arabic & definition More E courses GL Dictionary