prospect Copy link Outline I. View of things within reach of the eyeII. Anticipation of the future • prospect: I. View of things within reach of the eye: prospectus, ūs (to be used with caution): he scans the whole p.: omnem p. petit (oculis), Virg. Aen. 1, 181: (a house) with a fine p., pulcherrimo p., Auct. pro dom. 44, 116. (But the word denotes strictly, out-look or power of seeing to a distance, not the scene itself which the eye surveys.) Usu. better expr. by prospĭcio, 3: the dining-room commands a wide p. of the sea, coenatio latissimum mare p., Plin. Ep. 2, 17, 12: Hor. Ep. 1, 10, 23. Or frequent. prospecto, 1: a place commanding a wide p., locus late prospectans, Tac. H. 3, 60: Phaedr. Phr.: to block up any one's p. (build before his lights), luminibus alicujus obstruere, Auct. pro dom. 44, 115. II. Anticipation of the future: spes, ĕi, f. (may be used of evil as well as of good): actual circumstances bad, p.s far worse, mala res, spes multo asperior, Sall. Cat. 20. but much more freq. of good: there is not even a p. of improvement, ne s. quidem ulla ostenditur fore melius, Cic. Att. 11, 11: to afford a p. of ..., spem afferre ut ..., id. Am. 19, 68.