aforethought

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   planned or considered in advance; premeditated, especially in the legal phrase 'malice aforethought'

   Prosecutors argued that the killing was committed with malice aforethought.

A compound of afore, 'beforehand,' and thought, attested from Middle English. It became especially fixed in the legal expression malice aforethought, where it denotes an intention formed before an unlawful killing, though writers also use it playfully after other nouns such as kindness.

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