Portend
[pɔː'tend] or [pɔr'tɛnd]
Definition
(v. t.) To indicate (events, misfortunes, etc.) as in future; to foreshow; to foretoken; to bode; -- now used esp. of unpropitious signs.
(v. t.) To stretch out before.
Edited by Johanna
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. a. Presage, forebode, foretoken, betoken, foreshow, foreshadow, augur, prognosticate, threaten, indicate.
Editor: Lyle
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Indicate, threaten, prognosticate, forbode, augur, presage, herald, foreshow,betoken
ANT:Contradict, negative, preclude, forefend, nullify, contravene, avert
Editor: Terence
Definition
v.t. to indicate the future by signs: to betoken: presage.—n. Por′tent that which portends or foreshows: an evil omen.—adj. Portent′ous serving to portend: foreshadowing ill: wonderful dreadful prodigious.—adv. Portent′ously.
Typed by Dominic
Examples
- What does this unwonted excitement about such an every-day occurrence as a return from market portend? Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- What does this portend? Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- Small black clouds thus appearing in a clear sky, in hot climates portend storms, and warn seamen to hand their sails. Benjamin Franklin. Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin.
- What do these sounds portend? Mary Shelley. Frankenstein_Or_The Modern Prometheus.
- It portended that there was one stone face too many, up at the chateau. Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities.
- India had endured many changes of rulers before, but never the sort of changes in her ways that these things portended. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- But even for an onlooker in a neutral country, the significance of every move made, of every advance here and retreat there, lies in what it portends. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
- Comets, meteors, an d eclipses were considered as omens portending pestilence, national disaster, or the fate of kings. Walter Libby. An Introduction to the History of Science.
Checker: Monroe