English

Noun

foreshoot ‎(plural foreshoots)

1. The leading shoot.
   • 1845, The Phalanx: Organ of the Doctrine of Association:

     When we consider the era in which Plato lived, before the Revelation of Christ had shed the sunbeams of its life and light upon the world, seeing only a foreshoot of the glorious day about to open, and conjecturing obscurely as to the true relationship and destiny of men, we are astonished at the beauty and justice of his sentiments, and his deep devotion to the laws of Eternal Order and Duty.

   • 1962, The Western Humanities Review - Volumes 16-17, page 315:

     Yet they offer no certain guarantees, since just one more all-out war could possibly so weaken the complex and sensitive foreshoot of evolution which is human society that the process might not be able to recover and go on to realize its unimaginable potentialities.

   • 1987, Douglas Angus, The Best Short Stories of the Modern Age, ISBN The Best Short Stories of the Modern Age, page x:

     Man is no longer an insignificant accident in an immense and indifferent universe, but the very center and foreshoot of the vast evolutionary process.

2. (architecture) An overhang created by an upper level cantilevered over the lower level of a barn; forebay.
   • 1890, Carpentry and Building - Volume 12, page 81:

     The sketch inclosed is for a barn 42 x 34 feet with 8 feet foreshoot and the same back shed.

   • 1969, The Casselman Chronicle - Volumes 9-17, page 20:

     When they drove along under the "foreshoot" the horse lurched sideways and the front wheel caught behind a fence post.

Verb

foreshoot ‎(third-person singular simple present foreshoots, present participle foreshooting, simple past and past participle foreshot)

1. To go too far forward; overshoot.
   • 1825, Mac Erin O'Tara, Thomas Fitz-Gerald, the lord of Offaley, page 65:

     Instantly he gave the rein to his horse, and with panting speed foreshot his little army : in a moment after his beloved Fanny sprang into his arms.

   • 1852, New York (State) Legislature Assembly, Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York:

     The form of the barrel will, in most cases, compel the rope to "fleet" itself, that is, work upward, as it winds on, maintaining nearly an equal leverage in work, and if it should by accident do this suddenly, or as the seamen say, surge upwards, the men cannot be thrown down by the foreshooting and recoil of the bars they are working with, so that they work with an increased confidence, that greatly facilitates their labor; and all this is done without carrying the spindle through the deck, as has been the common practice.

   • 2013, Dominick Jones, All at Sea: Twenty Years at the Helm of Tall Ships, ISBN 147660343X, page 234:

     We coasted into the harbor, took down the sails, foreshot a little, let go the anchor, the moon rose, and Cecilia already had a meal prepared.