Adjacent Words

Ominous definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

OM'INOUS, a. [L. ominosus.]
1. Foreboding or presaging evil; indicating a future evil event; inauspicious.
In the heathen worship of God, a sacrifice without a heart was accounted ominous.
2. Foreshowing or exhibiting signs of good.
Though he had a good ominous name to have made peace, nothing followed.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

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]

Merriam Webster's

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 Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 threatening; indicating disaster or difficulty. 2 of evil omen; inauspicious. 3 giving or being an omen. Derivatives: ominously adv. ominousness n. Etymology: L ominosus (as OMEN)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

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.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

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

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. Portentous, monitory, premonitory, inauspicious, unpropitious.

Moby Thesaurus

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