expectancy

expectant +‎ -cy or expect +‎ -ancy

expectancy (countable and uncountable, plural expectancies)

1. Expectation or anticipation; the state of expecting something.
   • 1599, John Hayward, The First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henrie IIII. Extending to the end of the first yeare of his raigne, London: John Woolfe, p. 39,

     […] the Dukes dissembled their feares, and dissolued their forces, and remained in expectancie what would ensue.

   • 1651, John Milton, The Life and Reigne of King Charls, London: W. Reybold, p. 110,

     If you foresee not this misery, and the fatall consequence which necessarily must follow such a turn of Fortune, I must leave you to your own will and expectancy […]

   • 1735, Alexander Pope, Mr. Pope’s Literary Correspondence, London: E. Curll, Volume 2, “The Feast of Trimalchio, Imitaded,” pp. 42-43,

     […] this is generally thought to represent the Vices of Nero, who […] did from the highest Expectancy become a stubborn and a foolish Tyrant.

   • 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter VIII, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume III, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], OCLC 3163777, pages 201–202:

     Renewed hope followed renewed effort; it shone like the former for some weeks, then, like it, it faded, flickered: not a line, not a word reached me. When half a year wasted in vain expectancy, my hope died out; and then I felt dark indeed.

   • 1912, Saki, “The Match-Maker” in The Chronicles of Clovis, London: John Lane, p. 23,

     Six minutes later Clovis approached the supper-table, in the blessed expectancy of one who has dined sketchily and long ago.

2. The state of being expected. (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)
3. (law) Future interest as to possession or enjoyment
4. (obsolete) Something expected or awaited.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene i]:

     O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
     The courtier’s, scholar’s, soldier’s, eye, tongue, sword,
     Th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state […]

   • 1791, John Trusler, The Habitable World Described, London, for the author, Volume 10, Chapter 9, p. 157,

     […] Frederic II. King of Prussia, in consequence of an expectancy granted to the house of Brandenburg, by the Emperor Leopold in 1604, took possession of East Friezland […]

• expectingness (rare)