forebode
Americanverb (used with object)
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to foretell or predict; be an omen of; indicate beforehand; portend.
clouds that forebode a storm.
- Synonyms:
- augur, forecast, presage, foreshadow
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to have a strong inner feeling or notion of (a future misfortune, evil, catastrophe, etc.); have a presentiment of.
verb (used without object)
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to prophesy.
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to have a presentiment.
verb
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to warn of or indicate (an event, result, etc) in advance
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to have an intuition or premonition of (an event)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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forebodesimple
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forebodessimple
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have forebodedperfect
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has forebodedperfect
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am forebodingprogressive
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are forebodingprogressive
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is forebodingprogressive
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have been forebodingperfect progressive
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has been forebodingperfect progressive
Past
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forebodedsimple
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had forebodedperfect
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was forebodingprogressive
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were forebodingprogressive
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had been forebodingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of forebode
Vocabulary lists containing forebode
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
During the present year the Irish newspapers reported the discovery of the apparition of a black pig in the district of Kiltrustan… which caused much alarm, and was supposed to forebode some serious national disaster.
From Nature ● Dec. 17, 2018
Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not.
From Time Magazine Archive
What he had not yet learned was that the market, no matter how fundamentally strong, is always sensitive�not just to one day's happenings in Washington, but to what the events may forebode for the future.
From Time Magazine Archive
The leading company rode off as swiftly as they could, for it was still deep dark, whatever change Wídfara might forebode.
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
The police, whenever my mother forebode, would indeed come, and many of the men of the yard would be caught napping, surrendering themselves with lamblike submission.
From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane
It’s 1833 in Friel’s fictional small town, Ballybeg, where a sweet, putrid smell rising from the potato fields forebodes famine and an ingress of redcoats threatens to blight the local heritage.
From New York Times ● Dec. 11, 2023
A Game 7 loss at home for the fourth season in a row — 2-1 to the Nashville Predators in the first round Wednesday — forebodes consequences potentially more severe than previous years.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 28, 2016
‘You have chosen the Evening; but my love is given to the Morning. And my heart forebodes that soon it will pass away for ever.’
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
The first half of the play, though it forebodes tragedy, is not decisively tragic in tone.
From Oxford Lectures on Poetry by Bradley, Andrew Cecil
I fear me the night forebodes a storm.——Carlos,
From The Legendary and Poetical Remains of John Roby author of 'Traditions of Lancashire', with a sketch of his literary life and character by Roby, John
But it is foreboded that that will only be when we have both lost all that we now have.
From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien
The sky was utterly dark, and the stillness of the heavy air foreboded storm.
From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien
And so the victim of imagination was delivered from the storm of persecution which he had foreboded would be renewed on the succeeding day.
From Wise Saws and Modern Instances, Volume II (of 2) by Cooper, Thomas
LV Their hearts, I ween, foreboded what thence was to befall.
From The Nibelungenlied Revised Edition by Unknown
The man did not understand this, but it 282 foreboded trouble.
From Carolyn of the Corners by Endicott, Ruth Belmore
But a 0.1-percent dip in food services sales could reflect that people are opting to drive less -- a foreboding sign for broader spending in the services sector.
From Barron's ● Jun. 17, 2026
"I had that foreboding of what life was going to be, and I was getting pretty good on the guitar, so I sold my birthday presents to raise the money to go to Sweden."
From BBC ● Jun. 12, 2026
As if being thrown back into the pool of adverse insurance-company decisions weren’t bad enough, three new developments should cause foreboding among Medicare Advantage subscribers.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 10, 2026
The estate of Wuthering Heights is foreboding and dark, with rocks splintering through the walls, while Linton’s Thrushcross Grange bears a Victorian aesthetic, containing the outside world.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 11, 2026
It is his idea to flood the whole area beyond the set in a blue light, which is a masterstroke—it will both make the stage look less vast and lend the production a foreboding moodiness.
From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
