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This is actually two questions. One: is there a word that means present-looking? And: if there isn't, what should the neologism be? Spective? Conspective?

Note that although this is a serious question, it is mostly for the purpose of writing a pithy or facetious sentence. For instance,

Grants are deceitful—they're written as if they're prospective, but they're usually retrospective or conspective.

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    Literal;ly, circumspective means "looking all around" - but figuratively speaking, being here, present has close associations with being "watchful, circumspective".
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Feb 14, 2023 at 19:08
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    What is the overall intended meaning of the sentence? I'm not sure what you mean by "prospective" and "retrospective" in context.
    – alphabet
    Commented Feb 14, 2023 at 19:47
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    Note that your second question (asking people to coin a neologism) is usually considered off-topic here.
    – MarcInManhattan
    Commented Feb 14, 2023 at 19:58
  • Circumspect, no -ive necessary. But it describes behavior, not recollection or prediction.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Feb 14, 2023 at 20:53
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    Do you specifically want something ending "spective"? There are a lot of words that would fit, but none matching that pattern.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Feb 15, 2023 at 9:42

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To cover both the past-time and present-time cases, you could say that the grants are approved (or awarded) ex post facto. As Merriam-Webster explains, "approval for a project that's given ex post facto" means approval given "after the project already has been begun or completed."

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  • If ex post facto would do for the OP's purposes, then retrospective would do as well; their meanings are essentially the same.
    – jsw29
    Commented Feb 15, 2023 at 16:02
  • I think this has kind of gotten the gist. They're trying to say that the work has either been done or is in progress. I think "ex post facto" implies that it's completed.
    – Barmar
    Commented Feb 15, 2023 at 16:06
  • @jsw29 "Ex post facto" does not mean the same as "retrospective." It means that the approval (or awarding) happened after something. That "something" is unspecified but typically means "after the event you would expect it to precede," which in this case is the start (not the completion) of the work.
    – alphabet
    Commented Feb 15, 2023 at 17:48
  • Yes, but retrospective means looking backwards at something, some fact which needs to be specified separately, and that implies that the time from which we are looking at it is after it. What makes ex post facto arguably work for the OP's purposes is that you are allowing the relevant fact that is referred to by ex post facto to be the beginning of the project, which is independent of your choice of that phrase. If that works, then retrospective also works, in so far as an application that is made while the project is under way is looking backwards at the beginning of the project.
    – jsw29
    Commented Feb 15, 2023 at 22:58
  • @jsw29 "Retrospective" typically (I think) refers to "looking back on the past"; it suggests that the work related to the grant occurred entirely in the past, as a whole that one can look back on when the grant is approved (compare: nobody holds a "retrospective" on work that is incomplete). "Ex post facto" suggests that the grant was approved after something else that one would expect it to have preceded; this will likely be interpreted as referring to the start of the work, not necessarily to the work as a whole.
    – alphabet
    Commented Feb 15, 2023 at 23:14

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