futurology

Meanings

1. The scientific forecasting of future trends in science, technology or society

Etymology

From future + -ology. Attested once in 1934 as the title of play, Futureology; in later use, after German Futurologie, suggested in a 1942 letter to the American scholar John H. Herz by the German political scientist Ossip K. Flechtheim, who used futurology in a 1943 Phylon article.