prefiguration n an example that prefigures or foreshadows what is to come n the act of providing vague advance indications; representing beforehand Usage(s) The painting in question was Millais's Christ in the Carpenter's Shop, 1849-50, whose imagelittle Jesus hurting his hand on a nail, in prefiguration of Golgothamight strike . Synonym(s) foreshadowing adumbration