OMINOUS DEFINITIONS - 11 definitions found
ominous adj 1: threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments; "a baleful look"; "forbidding thunderclouds"; "his tone became menacing"; "ominous rumblings of discontent"; "sinister storm clouds"; "a sinister smile"; "his threatening behavior"; "ugly black clouds"; "the situation became ugly" [syn: baleful, forbidding, menacing, minacious, minatory, ominous, sinister, threatening] 2: presaging ill fortune; "ill omens"; "ill predictions"; "my words with inauspicious thunderings shook heaven"- P.B.Shelley; "a dead and ominous silence prevailed"; "a by- election at a time highly unpropitious for the Government" [syn: ill, inauspicious, ominous] ominous - ritiwo Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition (2003) ominous adjective Date: 1580 being or exhibiting an omen ; portentous; especially foreboding or foreshadowing evil ; inauspicious • ominously adverb • ominousness noun Synonyms: ominous, portentous, fateful mean having a menacing or threatening aspect. ominous implies having a menacing, alarming character foreshadowing evil or disaster <ominous rumblings from the volcano>. portentous suggests being frighteningly big or impressive but now seldom definitely connotes forewarning of calamity <an eerie and portentous stillness>. fateful suggests being of momentous or decisive importance <the fateful conference that led to war>. Oxford English Reference Dictionary
Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner\'s English Dictionary ominous If you describe something as ominous, you mean that it worries you because it makes you think that something unpleasant is going to happen. There was an ominous silence at the other end of the phone... ADJ • ominously The bar seemed ominously quiet... Ominously, car sales slumped in August... ADV: ADV adj, ADV with cl, ADV with v English Explanatory Dictionary ominous ˈɔmɪnəs adj. 1 threatening; indicating disaster or difficulty. 2 of evil omen; inauspicious. 3 giving or being an omen. øøominously adv. ominousness n. [L ominosus (as OMEN)] Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) Ominous \Om"i*nous\, a. [L. ominosus, fr. omen. See Omen.] Of or pertaining to an omen or to omens; being or exhibiting an omen; significant; portentous; -- formerly used both in a favorable and unfavorable sense; now chiefly in the latter; foreboding or foreshowing evil; inauspicious; as, an ominous dread. He had a good ominous name to have made a peace. --Bacon. In the heathen worship of God, a sacrifice without a heart was accounted ominous. --South. -- Om"i*nous*ly, adv. -- Om"i*nous*ness, n. Soule\'s Dictionary of English Synonyms ominous a. Portentous, monitory, premonitory, inauspicious, unpropitious. English Explanatory Dictionary (Synonyms) ominous ˈɔmɪnəs adj. 1 foreboding, threatening, fateful, dark, black, gloomy, lowering or louring, menacing, sinister; unpropitious, unfavourable, ill-omened, ill-starred, unpromising, star-crossed, inauspicious: With ominous solemnity, the judge placed a black cloth square on his head before passing the death sentence. 2 minatory, warning, admonitory, cautionary: The whispering had taken on ominous overtones. 3 portentous, prophetic, oracular, vaticinal, predictive, prognostic, augural, mantic, sibyllic, meaningful, premonitory, foreshadowing, foretelling, foretokening, indicative: Virtually everything was regarded as ominous in ancient times. Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 131 Moby Thesaurus words for "ominous": abusive, admonitory, apocalyptic, augural, bad, badly off, baleful, baneful, black, bludgeoning, blustering, bodeful, boding, browbeating, bulldozing, bullying, cautionary, comminatory, corroding, corrosive, corrupting, corruptive, counterproductive, damaging, dark, deadly, deleterious, denunciatory, depressed, detrimental, dire, direful, disadvantageous, disserviceable, distressing, donsie, doomful, dreary, evil, evil-starred, fatal, fateful, fear-inspiring, forbidding, foreboding, foreshadowing, foretelling, foretokening, fortuneless, funest, gloomy, grim, hapless, harmful, hectoring, hostile, hurtful, ill, ill off, ill-boding, ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred, imminent, in adverse circumstances, inauspicious, indicative, inhospitable, injurious, intimidating, lethal, lowering, luckless, malefic, maleficent, malevolent, malign, malignant, mantic, meaningful, menacing, minacious, minatory, mischievous, noisome, noxious, of evil portent, oracular, out of luck, pernicious, planet-struck, poisonous, portending, portentous, predictive, prejudicial, premonitory, prognostic, prophetic, sad, scatheful, short of luck, sibyllic, sinister, somber, star-crossed, terroristic, terrorizing, threatening, threatful, toxic, unblessed, underprivileged, unfavorable, unfortunate, unfriendly, unhappy, unlucky, unpromising, unpropitious, unprosperous, unprovidential, untoward, vaticinal, venenate, veneniferous, venenous, venomous, vicious, virulent, warning |
|
